The other night I logged on and donned my optional ball skirt in anticipation of a bit of light chit chat with a bit of dancing thrown in.I quickly made my way to ‘Heaven in the Clouds’ and sat down on a rather bright pink bench. I was soon IMed by a guy I met some days ago who asked me if he could join me. ‘Great.’ I thought, agreeing to a teleport request. ‘Maybe I’m in for a nice evening after all.
Unfortunately, he turned out to be the strong silent type, (Did I mention he’s French) and whilst I can get by in French, it’s really a strain speaking it all the time. Needless to say, our conversation rapidly went from not very much to zilch in a very short space of time.
I was just in the middle of asking him why he’d gone all silent on me, when he did a most disconcerting thing, he vanished, quit, ran off, which ever way you want to put it.
Charming I thought, with friends like you, who needs enemies?
So there I was sat in the middle of this heavenly landscape surrounded by shiny happy people who were to all intents and purposes in luv, feeling like the biggest gooseberry that ever went to a ball!So what’s a girl to do? I asked myself. I thought, ‘If I stay here amongst all these heavenly lovers, I think that I’ll shortly be in need of a bucket.’
So I quickly teleported myself to the Three Lions and I sat down in a comfy chair to sulk and generally feel sorry for myself. Growing quickly bored, I decided to peruse my virtual red book of hapless friends, when I spotted the name of my Australian mate.
‘Well, it can’t hurt to IM him.’ I thought. He replied that he was quitting soon, but that he would come and talk to me for a bit. ‘How kind,’ I thought, accepting his request to teleport him in. When he appeared, he nearly landed on my head, not a good start. He explained that he too had been with someone and that she too had made a hasty retreat.
‘It looks like you’re landed with silly old Amy again.’ I replied.
I tease him and tell him that he could have been landed with me all night. He laughs at this and replies ‘Well.’ Which is as good as saying; I’ll do what I want!’ So like, I’m sat there thinking, well thanks for that; that makes me feel a whole lot better!
Then he asks me who I was with and I explain about my disappearing friend and he sympathises. Then we go silent for a while, and I think. ‘Oh no, here we go again!’
For personal reasons that I can’t go into here, an emergency occurs in RL and I suddenly have to make my excuses and leave.
Such is life in the great friendship hunting ground of SL.
The trouble is, if you find your friends, a number of scenarios seem to crop up.......
What you’ll find is that one; they’re invariably with some one else and have no time for you, so you’ll get a message to the effect of ‘butt out, I’m busy.’ Which roughly translates as, ‘I’m in the middle of a big sloppy kiss and I don’t want that nosy Amelia anywhere in the vicinity!’
Or alternatively two; they are off line, because like, erm the chances of you actually getting together in the first place are about as remote as NASA finding intelligent alien life, especially if he lives in Southern Alaska and you live in rainy old Britain.
So you hope that they will perhaps IM you, a remote, but vague possibility and sometimes they do.
But be warned, if you’re going to attempt a friendship with someone who lives in an opposite time line (and what I mean by that is that you should be asleep when he or she is awake) your road will be a rocky one and littered with sleepless nights, which may or may not lead to you becoming a serial insomniac.
So on reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that finding your way around the SL friendship thing is as fraught with danger, hurt, yes hurt, and frustrating as it can be in real life. Only more so, because at least in real life, you don’t have to wait for the sun to come up in some remote and forgotten place to actually like, talk to a friend!
If you’re reading this and you can empathise. Please do so and make a girl feel better. Yes it’s true, I’m really just a big softy at heart, are you a big softy to? Do people sit on the cushion of your oft broken heart and squash it flat?
Let me know (you can by leaving a comment). My name’s Amelia Softy, what’s yours?
Contributed by Amelia Lutrova.
