Ask DrFran: Dancing Queens Drama

By DrFran Babcock

Dear DrFran:

I don’t think you can help with this, but I am giving it a shot anyway. I have a friend—no, not me—and I am just about to give up on her. Before I do that, I wanted to ask you about the situation.

My girlfriends and I are a close-knit group. We do a lot of the things most girls do in Second Life™: shop, dance, go to parties, and talk, talk, talk in voice. We do have a few guy friends who come along with us, but mostly we are together having laughs. It’s really nice, or at least it was really nice until recently.

We are always ready to incorporate new ladies into our group, and Brittany seemed a perfect addition, with her quick wit and Australian accent. She quickly caught on to our ways, and became an important member of our shopping expeditions. She changed clothes even more than all of us, and her taste, while different, was very interesting. Things could not have been better, and we all enjoyed having Brittany with us on our jaunts.

Every crowd of girls has a ringleader, who is the person who generally sets the agenda for the get-togethers, and decides what is to be done. Rowena is our mistress of ceremonies, and most of us are more than happy to do whatever she suggests for our romps through the virtual world.

Our new friend Brittany seemed very taken with Rowena, and spent more and more time with us, seeming to court favor with our leader. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual about this initially, but that all changed one day when Rowena didn’t respond in a timely way to an IM that Brittany sent her.

Brittany started to IM all of the other girls to ask why Rowena was ignoring her. We all know that sometimes Rowena gets involved in things and doesn’t pay attention to her IMs, and none of us was particularly bothered by this. We knew that sooner or later Rowena would look up and see her IMs. However, Brittany was not able to just accept the situation. She kept IMing us and her questions evolved from asking why Rowena wasn’t responding to her IMs, to why was she always left out of everything, and she wasn’t going to take it anymore, and she needed real friends, not untrustworthy people like Rowena. We were all pretty shaken by what developed, but Rowena patched it up with Brittany and the group partied on.

Sadly, this scenario of Brittany melting down whenever she perceived that she did not get enough attention from Rowena continued and got stronger and stronger. She un-friended and re-friended her several times. She attempted to enlist us in taking sides, and helping to negotiate discussions about her lack of attention. She said: “I can’t take this anymore!” so many times that we stopped listening.

All of us really had enough, and were ready to say good-bye to our newest member, but a few of us had the good sense to realize that people who behave this way are usually dealing with some sort of trauma from the past, and have little skill in dealing with it. That was when I thought of asking you what to do.

Is there anything we can do to help Brittany be one of us? Thanks, 

One of the Crowd

Dear One of:

Thanks for your letter, and for your concern. I think it’s admirable that you have such compassion for this person. Most people in SL would have dumped Brittany the moment that she started to cause disruptions in the group.

You are probably correct in your assessment of the situation. Brittany most likely is responding to her present time as if it was the past. We all do this. The relics of our childhood remain with us; usually throughout our lives.  A child who grew up being severely criticized will almost always be sensitive to criticism. Since all of us—this writer included—don’t really think about the connection with the past, we are doomed to repeat old patterns and habits. Whatever Brittany is going through is not really what is going on in the group of girls in Second Life™, but something that is a reenactment of something from her childhood. If, for example, Brittany was the child who was left out of things by her mother, she may be responding to Rowena as if she was the mother who left her out. Of course, I am merely speculating about the exact circumstances, but the intensity of Brittany’s responses makes it clear that the past is calling her.

Your question asked about what to do about this. Unfortunately, my response is neither a quick fix, nor a fix at all. It is Brittany’s job to find out how to get past this problem. The only thing you and your girlfriends can do is find some way to stick with her, despite her maddening behavior. Brittany lacks the ability to trust others, and feel at ease with them. You ladies can help her by being constant no matter how angry she becomes. If you keep letting her back in she may start to feel more comfortable in the group and lose the need to be constantly validated by Rowena.

I wish you luck and stamina, as that is what will be required to break through this roadblock in your group’s progress. Let me know how you make out. 

Affectionately, 

DrFran

Obligatory disclaimer: The column Ask DrFran is the work of DrFran Babcock, and may not reflect the views of SL Newser as a whole. Please direct any correspondence to DrFran Babcock. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Ask DrFran: It’s a Big Grid

By DrFran Babcock

Dear DrFran: 

My rez date is from 2006, but I left Second Life soon after I came in, and didn’t return until recently. I am amazed at how much has changed since then. The grid is a gorgeous place filled with amazing builds. Mesh has added so much to the way things look—it’s a paradise. The thing that is most striking to me is how vast the world is—it’s gigantic! I teleport from place to place to place, and I mostly find myself alone. That’s what I wanted to ask you about.

Back in 2006 I could find things to do by looking on the website at events. There were always a lot of events, and I found them. What was a problem back then is still a problem for me today. I just don’t know how to make friends here.  There are some places where I find lots of avatars: Frank’s Place Jazz Club, New Citizens Incorporated, and some of the Welcome Areas. I go to these places and hang around, but nothing ever seems to happen.

My question is: How do I meet people in Second Life? I don’t mean finding a boyfriend. I just want to have people to hang around with, explore to this fantastic place, and sit and chat. What am I doing wrong? Thanks, 

Lonely in Paradise. 


Dear Lonely: I chose your letter out of a pile of similar letters. There are many residents who feel alone here in SL, and are at a loss to figure out what to do to change this. As a result, many of them do leave, and never come back.

However, there is a lot one can do to make their Second Life a social and active environment. This does take a bit of self-honesty, if you are willing to do that. Here is a list of questions and suggestions:

1.     Am I really lonely? Do I really want to be with other people, or do I just think I should be with other people?

Believe it or not, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying solitude. Our society places a great emphasis on being with others, and folks who enjoy their own company can often feel different or excluded. The fact is that Second Life seems to attract many people who are content with creating and exploring without chatting or being around other residents. DrFran enjoys the solitude of creativity quite often. I say this so that those among you who feel this way might know that really it is OK. I am going to assume, Lonely, by what you have written, that you are not a happy loner.

2.     If I determine I do want to meet other people, then I have to think about a few things? Most important is the question of interest. What is it you like doing, Lonely?

You mentioned exploring the grid and chatting with others. As I said above, it is crucial to be doing the things you like to do in Second Life in order to meet people with whom you might have things in common. For example, like many people in Second Life, I like music. When I was a new avatar, I went to many concerts, and found that the performers I liked attracted people that I liked. But, that’s not enough. The only way that other people get to know me is if I talk. So, when I went to concerts, I started to participate in the conversations that always go on in open chat, no matter how compelling the performance. If you stand there an wait for things to happen, you will never meet people. I understand how shy people can be intimidated by the prospect of having to share in a populated environment, so there are other things I have done to ease myself into social situations:

a.     Do something where the conversations and interactions are expected in the event: Trivia and building classes are two events where talking around the task is structured in. If those don’t work for you, find something that requires you to speak about something in particular. You mentioned the events listing…they can still be found on the bottom of the website dashboard page. They are not as user friendly as they used to be, but they do exist.

b.     Get involved in a charity: Some of the best friends I have made in Second Life are the people that I worked with on the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. For many years I have helped with building and events, and this has helped me to develop relationships that continued beyond the event.

c.      Join a group: Group chat is often broken, but when it is not, it is a great way to chat anonymously with like-minded people. One of the easiest ways to meet people is to join a group that is involved in a hunt. The Peace on Earth Hunt Group had many members, and they chatted about the hunt and other things all the time. I have a friend who met a good friend from that group.

3.     Be honest with yourself about what you want.

At the risk of repeating myself: Do what you really like here in Second Life. The relationships will develop if you are true to yourself. It may sound crazy, but I have always been a lover of canals, and in my attempts to recreate canals with working locks here, I have met and become friends with a wide assortment of residents. Builders, scripters, geeks and the like were attracted to my interest, and we developed friendships that persist to this day. I don’t have a working canal at this moment, but I still have the friends.

I hope all of this is helpful to you, Lonely. There are ways to create a Second Life that more naturally invites other people into it. Anyone out there you has ideas on how to meet people is welcome to contact me with ideas and suggestions.

Take care, until next week.

Hugs,

DrFran Babcock

Ask DrFran: It’s All About Perception

Dear DrFran: I don’t think it’s the lack of face-to-face First Life contact that caused the problem I am about to share with you. I think it was a difference in worldview. I just closed out a chapter in my Second Life that causes me a lot of emotional pain. I wonder over and over how I could have so missed the mark.

My guy and I didn’t meet and start the usual whirlwind SL relationship of: 1) hello; 2) let’s have sex; 3) let’s be a couple; 4) that’s enough; 5) good-bye. We were united over an interest in building and creating, and that’s what brought us together. He IMed me one day to discuss something he noted in my profile while we were both in the audience of the old Show and Tell. The more we talked, the more we found that we had similar interests in travel, culture and were both fanatical lovers of the wonder that is Second Life. We chatted pretty regularly for almost eight months before we actually spent any time together. I invited him over to my land to see a build I was working on. Thus began almost three years of just about daily contact, hours and hours of time logged building together, creating a sim, and talking, talking, talking. In the entire time I was with him, I was not ever bored or looking for topics to discuss. We were both interested in many things and interested in each other’s interests. I learned a lot from him, and I believe he learned a lot from me.

The only fly in the ointment was the way we fought, which we did with increasing frequency as time went on. Our fights usually started with me getting angry at him because he didn’t log in until I had waited many hours, or he was critical of the things I was building. I guess that’s not such unusual stuff, but as time went on it seemed that our differences were irreconcilable. When I got angry, he would just get angry back, and we descended into yelling back and forth without any common ground. No matter how many times I told him that I got angry because I cared, he just refused to accept this and move an inch in making peace. He brought up ex-girlfriends in SL all the time, despite the fact that I told him, assertively and calmly that this behavior upset me. I asked him not to do this, and he did. Eventually, we just could not come to any reasonable compromise with each other. From my standpoint, every attempt I made to tell him that I cared was met with a list of all the things I had done wrong. Despite my feelings for him, which persist to today, it had to end. I feel like a junkie without my drug. I went from knowing there was someone to talk to, to having a hole in the fabric of my Second Life.

I wish there had been some way to let him know that I really cared for him—his intelligence, humor, building and scripting skills, and just how zany he could be. However, this is done. I know I will eventually get over this, but what could I have done differently.   

Lonely on the Mainland.


Dear Lonely: I am sorry for the pain you are feeling now. There is probably no worse pain than that of a lost relationship. You have asked what you could do differently, so I will not comment on your significant other’s behavior. Besides, you said you two see things differently, thus I don’t know how accurate your descriptions of his behavior might be.

I can say some things to you. Yes, I know you are hurt. Yes, I know that you cared about this guy. Yes, you had a real and long relationship with him, and unlike many others DrFran believes it’s all real here. You can run, but you can’t hide from who you are.

That said, a lot of the things that you did were designed to push him away. (NOTE: In the interest of protecting the anonymity of this avatar, I removed some details about events that occurred, but my answer reflects some of this additional information) Nobody likes folks who are demanding and needy. I understand that you cared about him, but responding to his lack of logging in with anger could only serve to alienate and anger him. I am not blaming you; I am trying to help you see what he might have perceived. If you really cared about him, the best thing would have been to ignore his attempts at angering you by mentioning ex-girlfriends. Each time you got enraged, you pushed him further away.

People are so imperfect, me, you, your ex. When we care about someone we learn to make peace with what we see as their faults and shortcomings, or we decide not to accept and leave.

Lonely, if you are lucky enough to enter another relationship see if you can: Live and Let Live a little. You sound like a caring person, and I hope you can learn to lay back a bit, and let people be who they are. Meanwhile, I hope you have other friends and interests to engage your time. If not, ask yourself why you invested so much in just one person. You used the word “addict,” and I hope that you care for people rather than get addicted to them. Hugs and best wishes. DrFran

If you have a question for DrFran Babcock, please send her a notecard, or you can email at: DrFranBabcock@mac.com

DISCLAIMER: Ask DrFran is not meant to reflect a professional mental health opinion, nor necessarily the opinions of SL Newser. The primary purpose of this column is entertainment and journalism.

ADDENDUM: A reader contacted me following the Weighty Issues column of last week with some very good, different, and perspective changing views on overweight, health, and society’s thoughts about obesity. The reader used facts, research and logic to dispute my opinion that obesity presents health problems. If anyone reading this is interested in receiving the scholarly information on this topic, please email me at the above address.