An SL Dance
I see you across the dance floor and for whatever reason you catch my eye and I find myself watching you more and more. I look at your profile, and according to my arbitrary “rules” you interest me. Not too young; Not a Noobie; your avatar has had a lot of work done… These thoughts seem frivolous but they are in fact how I make a first assessment of you. We strike up a conversation and as we do I am even more impressed you are intelligent articulate and your sense of humour is apparent immediately. And so the dance begins….
Yes, I mean that both literally and figuratively. As we dance we chat about SL first, then on to more personal topics. As we chat I tell you that I am unable to separate SL and RL, since I am one and the same. As my profile loudly proclaims: “Honesty and integrity are everything to me.” I say. You agree and even go a few steps further and tell me of stories riddled with lies and deceit. “That’s not right!” we both agree. In SL you are a DJ and I can hear your voice light up as you talk about the people you have met. It turns out you have come to SL to live out an unfulfilled RL dream. “I played in a band when I was younger but we never made it big and so now I DJ here.” I nod and laugh. Although we are light hearted I can now hear an underlying truth and personal sadness that I can relate to. If my RL were perfect I probably wouldn’t spend so much time here myself. I pride myself on being an open and non-judgemental person and one of my personal mantras is “Live and let Live” . So while part of me is tempted to tell you that we only live once and life is too short, you “should” get out into the real world, I say nothing. After all am I not sitting behind an identical computer doing the same thing you are? Another of my personal truths is, “when I am tempted to judge I need not look any further than the mirror”.
Silently I chastise myself. “You always take things too seriously and over analyze things. This is supposed to be fun, go with the flow.” And so I do. We dance in the moment, back to SL and the trivial until you type “Be right back, real life moment.” When you return you tell me that your RL wife needed help bringing in the groceries but that she is now heading out again so you are not likely to be interrupted again. My heart sinks because a RL wife complicates things. A million thoughts and questions spring to mind immediately. Does she know? Are you happy? Do you play SL together? Then I realize I have got ahead of myself. There is no reason for me to be concerned with your RL situation, after all, we’ve just met and are only dancing and chatting. Or is there?
My conscience in in full swing again and I must admit at this moment my concern is not with you or us, if there is even an “us” but with those arbitrary “rules” I log into SL with every day. Coming up to my first SL birthday, those rules have changed many times. At first it was just a “game”, a way to fill my time when I was too sick to leave my home and it was better than staring at the television but today I keep coming back for the people and the friends I have made. This “marriage” issue I have never fully resolved for myself, let alone how it relates to you. First, it was only a game, therefore not real so not even an issue. Later after I learned my avatar doesn’t have emotions but I do, and I swore it was not for me. Finally, to in essence, nullifying the issue with the thought of dealing with the issue if and when it arises.
But wait, I have been lost in my thoughts only to come back and see you in my IM’s, “Are you there, Hello?” I come back to the moment and put the whole issue on the back burner because I know I will not solve it right now and even if I think I may have, tomorrow will have another set of “rules”. I am not proud of this seemingly flexible moral standard, after all where is my integrity now?
I add you to my friends list and that first dance leads to an afternoon of dancing, chatting and yes, flirting. Again that little voice inside my head speaks her concerns. I hear them but unsure of almost everything I silence it. My rational mind also says, we have done nothing but chat and there has been no “sex” so it’s ok. So, we continue our dance…
Dancing, we continue dancing, in and out of RL and SL. Weeks turn into months and you are now in my “top 5 friends” and we have laughed and cried over our pixelated avi’s and our RL problems. I believe I know you the “real” you behind the avatar. I know your RL name and the names of your wife and your children. I also know you have an SL partner that is not your wife. I choose you as a friend and apply my “live and let live” motto to your moral dilemmas. I am not the moral police and with my flexible “rules”, I have enough of my own.
Together we dance.
Talking, sharing, debating and loving. Yes, I love you now. Not a romantic love, but a love born of great affection, caring and mutual support. You are having problems with your SL love and we talk about the “right” thing to do but never come to any firm conclusions because for every rule we create there is always an exception. Throughout it all there is within us I sense, a need to hold ourselves accountable and not hurt anyone intentionally. I say intentionally because we hurt people all the time even when we have their well-being in the front of our minds.
I can feel your pain; you too wear your heart on your sleeve. I want to make you smile and so I make silly jokes, and poke fun at our “soap opera’s”. I dance with you again at one of your gigs. We flirt; you finally confess to me that you want to create an Alt to have an extra-marital affair on your current SL wife. I come down on you hard. “That is wrong.” I tell you,“ you need to be open and honest about it to her and if you can both agree on the terms of the relationship then fine. If not you need to end it with her before moving on”. Honesty and Integrity mean everything to me, but have I completely forgotten about the first life wife? Where is my integrity now?
We have crossed many boundaries time and time again, as we did yesterday and surely will tomorrow. There still has been “no sex” so that line remains intact, but after my confession that I do in fact love you, that surely points to an emotional attachment of some kind. As I try to rationalize my actions with those imaginary “rules”, I am at a loss. In order to condone my actions I can argue it is nothing more than a friendship, no different than any other. Yet, if I am true to myself, I know in fact the friendship we have created in this three dimensional world is so much more; Even if it cannot be easily categorized.
And so in the end, I will first try to be honest with myself and then as honest with you as I can but if those “rules” seem to change with the weather remember there is indeed a real person behind this avatar. Where I end and my avatar begins and just how she is going to interact with your avatar and you is complicated and something I can only contemplate yet not quite define.
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