My two year journey through second life has seen many ups and downs both in casual and long term relationships. Can we truly call them relationships when the person we are in second life is not the person we are in real life and where does the real life begin and the second one end, does it end?
There are some people that believe in monogamy and some that don't. There are those that believe they have a complete divide between their real life and their second life but do they really? Is it really possible to plant a wedge and divide the two worlds apart?
Its Friday night and I join one of my friends Mike at Bad Girls for their White and Black event. Ive known Mike for 8 months, I met him in the club back in August 08 and we become good friends. Mike is someone I can go dancing with and have great conversation with. I get talking to Mike about his relationships in Second Life. He has one special lady in his life at present but says that they are more like just good friends. She is married in real life in fact Mike says that every one of the ladies he has dated in second life has been married. Mike is single in his real life so this poses the question does he date married women because its "safe". The married women he dates he believes are not looking for anything real life and therefore the chances of them ever asking for a meet up in real life are very slim. Men like Mike come here to live the fantasy and to escape their real lives. In fact Mike was very adamant that real life is real life and second life is second life and that never the twain shall meet..However when I posed the question to him that if he were to meet a single girl who lived local in real life would he not be tempted? His reply was maybe but that it would depend on how the second life relationship developed. However he says he is usually on guard when it comes to that and he doesn't and hasn't let that happen... I wonder if its because he hasn't met the local single girl and not because his guard is as steely as he thinks.Mike assures me he is single in real life because that is the way he likes it and that it is no different here in second life.
On my way home this evening in the great black cab called the teleport of second life I called up my friend Niven, Niven is a really good friend who I have only known a short while but one who is like a second life brother to me. I needed to find out the married mans perspective on whether it is possible to keep the two worlds separate. He started by saying that its possible to try but if you like someone in Second life then its hard to shake the conviction that you will like them in real life. He feels that a lot of people in second life show more about their real lives to their second life friends than they ever would to their real life friends purely because you don't have the face to face contact you do in the real world. its easier here to share your innermost thoughts and feelings. Niven wonders if people in second life know more about their second life friends than they do about their real life friends.
I believe that he has made a very valid point there as I tell my friends in second life more things about my self, my thoughts and how I am feeling than I ever care too in my real life. Its far easier to express emotion in a world where we have no physical emotions. We have to voice emotion because the outward signs are not there. If I'm happy my second life friends can not see me smile or laugh I have to convey that to them that they have made me smile or laugh.. Does the emotion stop with a facial expression or does it run a lot deeper than that?
If Real Life is a meeting of matter, then could it be argued that second life is a meeting of minds?
I'll leave you with this thought that I'm still unsure whether you can keep your real life separate from your second life. There are people that are adamant that they would never cross the divide but I believe that we all bring so much of our real selves to this crazy virtual world of ours that maybe it is impossible to say concretely whether you would or wouldn't let the two mix. To quote Mike "Anything is Possible"
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