How NOT to make friends

[norajulian]

I’m honestly the worst at maintaining friendships, primarily because I’m the type of person who keeps my circle relatively small, and my introversion is far enough that I rarely reach out first. I do work, mostly, and because of that my “friendships” are usually business-based. A personal annoyance of mine are folks who ask for discounts simply because they add me to their friend’s list to make scheduling easier. 
 

Don’t get me wrong - I’m happy to gift my friends photos or landscaping or whatever I can provide, and often do such things for those who keep in contact, but to add me as a friend and then ask for a discount on a service that I’ve been told I should charge higher for anyway.. and then to yell at me afterwards is... confusing. Perhaps this is my fault for not cleaning better. 🥴

 

Also, the dreaded “hi” word. A waste of an open IM. You darling person, why not tack another sentence on there? “Hi” is so little to go on. 
 

Lastly: adding to your list and then mass TPing. Constantly. With no other interactions. There is <0 to go off of with that . 

[Prokofy Neva]

On 6/1/2020 at 8:44 AM, Orwar said:

   People continuously seem to misunderstand the purpose of this board; it's not about posting personal adverts, it's about sharing experiences and asking questions on the topic of how to make friends. The questions and answers are, however, spread thin across the multitude of threads that this board has, and continues, to spawn.

   So I thought, as an introverted, prejudiced misanthrope who, magically, has a contact list which in spite of regular grooming always has plenty of people on it, let's approach it from the other end and discuss how not to make friends.

   See it a bit as 'the pet peeve' thread, but focusing on socialising. Now I shouldn't have to point out that this thread, just as any other thread, is not the place for personal disputes and flaming as this is true for the entire forums - but I'll go ahead and say it anyway; if you're incapable of being in the same space as people with whom you may not fully agree with in all aspects of life, beat it.

 

   I'll start off with a peeve of mine which regards what I just mentioned, the 'personal adverts' that appear here. I have contacted quite a few people who made such threads over the years, but in the vast majority of the times I did, I found the person to be utterly unwilling to uphold even the most elementary essentials of social exchange, leaving conversational dead-ends at every response which mounts to more and more resistance to break through to connect with someone. For example:

• Hello there! I saw your thread on the 'Make Friends' section of the forums and thought I'd reach out. How are you doing?
• Hi.
• Everything going okay?
• Yeah, fine.
• What are you up to?
• Nothing much.

   This isn't even an exaggeration, this is how a fair amount of people actually respond to being contacted - usually even without the use of punctuation (which, to me, is a severe turn-off!). Could it be because I'm a scary man and a 'potential creep'? Perhaps in some cases, but I've tried it with Neph too and, granted, she may be scary as well, but then I don't tend to reach out to the sparkly unicorn fan club types either.

   Friendship, whether in Second Life or real life, isn't something you're entitled to; it's nothing people should have to serve you on a silver platter. For two people to get to know each other, there must be a mutual exchange of interest or curiosity. If you're unprepared to engage with people, advertising your wish to make friends is utterly pointless, and a waste of your time as well as that of all who respond to you. If you're feeling 'shy' when approached through a textual conversation, then I honestly couldn't tell you what's wrong with you - but rest assured, something needs looking into.

   P.S.

   This isn't a response to any recent event, thread, or any one person in particular - if you feel 'hit', don't worry; I've likely already forgotten all about you.

   So, what are some other ways not to make friends?

I was expecting something different from this original post and the discussion so far, but I've come to see that I really prefer playing SL "solitaire," so to speak. Working on my own projects, flying around and exploring on my own, attending the occasional event and just watching and not wooting or gesturing and so on.

I value my long-time SL actual friends, one of whom I knew in TSO and met in RL and have kept up with. We have mutual life experiences, views, thoughts etc in common so friendship is natural.

I have some SL friends that I have known for 15 years, but I have no idea who they are in RL, and even their SL is something of a mystery, but we chat about certain issues we have in common, the current state of SL in the meta sense, the land business, the market, the LindEx, etc.

Some tenants are friends simply because they've been there so long, or we might have a few things in common in terms of interest in exploration or the arts.

I was fortunate to make a new friend in SL this year who shared both my interests in SL mainland issues and certain RL issues of foreign affairs etc. 

Sometimes you just hit it off with a person, despite very different ages, countries, experiences -- SL makes that possible. But other times all those factors that used to be called A/L/S in AOL chat rooms just divide you and become exasperating if they are disguised. Sometimes anonymity or to be more precise, pseudonymity make for better friendship or merely casual friendly interactions; sometimes they don't.

Often people force-friend me as tenants -- without any basis, they send me a card or ask to friend merely because they wish to be able to see if I am online or not, because they fear they won't give service. I sometimes ignore or turn these down and explain they don't need to do this because messages actually don't cap when you:

o tie your account to an email account and read it regularly

o right click on anything and "block" it when you log on, which forces messages not showing to flood in. Why this happens is a mystery but THAT is happens and is a great trick to deal with "capped messages" is definitely the case.

Sometimes I just let the "friendship" go through as it is more trouble to stop it than keep it, but then I open myself up to abuse. I get repeated "force ports" of people sending me a TP to their DJ party, birthday, new club, art show, whatever, and not just sending it as they have to a mass group, but badgering you go come. I get constant sales ads to buy their stuff. I get put in stupid group chats. I don't want any of these things and cut the cards of anyone who does this to me. If they keep doing it -- because they can do so by pasting the card -- I tell them that even though they are a tenant, I will block them. Usually they stop then.

So the devaluation of friendship through the card system enabling abuse and spam is one problem. But also the ability of people to understand boundaries and read social cues, either because they are on the autism spectrum, or because the nature of SL makes it hard.

So someone might be interested in one of my land preserve lots. They chat with me about this or that, and ask me to come sailing. I go sailing once -- but I don't like sailing. That's because you can't stop generally, as the distances are long and it can be laggy; and if you try to pan out and view something on shore, you fall out of your boat. I just don't like it. I occasionally go boating which is different than sailing; it can be better when someone takes you as you don't have to stop to look at the map or navigate. But I just don't like it. Even so, this person IM'd me daily for weeks to try to get me to go sailing. Finally they got the idea and stopped. But there were also calls to come and see this neat thing, come and see my house, etc. Sometimes it feels like a big game of Animal Crossing.

When there really is mutual interest and a give and take and not hammering on someone either time you see they log on because you have their card, you don't mind seeing their new thing. But if they aren't a friend, it is annoying.

I have one friend and tenant who has sent me gifts for years. This person has a sense of what a good gift is. I send them gifts. But other people send me gifts that they made and it's annoying. Merchants in the lesser-skilled category do a lot of this, to the point that I leave their groups. I myself am guilty of sending people something I just made in an ecstasy of creatorship. Most of the time they are underwhelmed as I am an amateur and they don't need or want the thing I sent. So I try to stop myself in time before doing that because it's stupid. 

In general, gift-giving is degenerated and diluted in SL because of the overwhelming presence of freebies and dollarbies and gifts at events. As they used to say in the news room on a slow news day, "It's always the anniversary of something" (Google's Doodles make heavy use of that concept). So it's the fifth anniversary of the event itself, which isn't anything remarkable -- time for free gifts. It's Christmas or Easter or who knows, Yuri's Night, and everybody has to make and give a gift. You notice certain high-end merchants never provide those gifts. It's beneath them. They need to get paid. And I'm actually glad that they don't make a balloon, a picture frame, a birdcage, a chair with a birdcage and a candle in it, a picture of a chair with a birdcage and a candle in it, or some other dumb thing, just to feel like they ticked off the box.

Events often involve these parties where everyone is supposed to come and set their avatar to dancing in a laggy sim with 50 or 100 others, and try to make conversation, which is disjointed due to lag, either in the group with chat lag or in the room with lag there. The chat is usually mindless. Occasionally people are prompted by something as bad as COVID or police brutality to speak their minds, but then there is such a mixture of levels of education, awareness, political affiliation that it is impossible. That is, SL is supposed to make this possible, but it doesn't.

I used to hold several discussion groups. I found these were ways to really make friends and have good talks with people. But they were constantly griefed by people who understand that they get maximum mileage of attention and annoyance by griefing events, and whose ideology basically proclaims that no one can use the Internet for anything serious, especially related to commerce.

I may start up these groups again if I am stuck at home for longer or don't have enough to do but that hasn't been the case for years. It's hard for me to show up at an event on schedule when I have RL jobs, etc. SL has to be asynchronous or fortuitous. When there has to be a schedule of obligations it really becomes tedious for me. As in RL, many of my SL friends either died in RL or left SL completely. 

If someone wrote on the forums that they wanted to make friends, I wouldn't write to them out of the blue with a cold call unless there was some existing point of mutual interest, a group, a build, an event, something. If they said "hi" to my "hi" and blew me off, I'd get it quick and not harass them. Sometimes you IM a person full of hope that they will be on the same wavelength; they aren't. Or sometimes, maybe 10 years go by, you have a casual relationship with them, but in time you realize the issue is a language barrier. Or a different time zone. 

The Lindens tried to improve things by putting this feature of interests you can check off or put in like key words on Wordpress. Does anyone look at them? I never do.  As your mother likely taught you, as mine did, to make a friend, you have to be a friend. Being a friend means knowing when you have to withdraw.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 6/1/2020 at 4:13 PM, Orwar said:

   Saunters up to Beth with a mischievous smirk. Mm, did I ever ask you 'what in the seven Hells is wrong with you'?

   Anyway - another way to quickly terminate a potential friendship is to flip off one's ability to see your online status; it sort of defeats the whole purpose of having you on that list to begin with and really just is a form of ghosting, and it's so easy to spot. If you don't want to talk to me, that's entirely fine, I don't demand your full and complete attention at all times when we are both online simultaneously. 

   Two people summarily ejected from my contact list in the last week alone for doing that. One of them I didn't speak much to to begin with. Sighs.

I turn off the ability to see friends online -- period. Because most aren't real friends, and even those who are, need not be telegraphing to me their re-logs every 30 minutes as SL is laggy. Off it goes.

I remember when FlipperPA wanted the Lindens to "do something" about the problem of people who had your card, who you wanted to keep your card, but who you didn't want to see you log on because they'd pepper you with IMs when you logged on. I used to think, why be friends with people to whom you can't say no? Or who do that to you? Who can't wait for you to have the world rez and collect your notices before they hammer on you with an IM?

But he got his way on this as in other things and the Lindens instituted the ability to hide your status online. To be able to log on, yet not be seen as doing so. Of course, the enterprising look in groups you have in common to see if it shows "online" or a date. But that's one way to deter the over-eager.

I never turn off my online status unless I know I'm going to be in the hospital. How can you be in business and do that? But I also just don't answer some people who hammer on me. or I go AFK, do not turn on the "Do Not Disturb" sign because I find in fact *that* is when messages caps and don't get received -- and why not just let them collect? If people find that annoying, understood, but since when am I required to answer you when you are thrusting things at me, i.e. as distinct from a customer needed something done. I'm not. 

I've found some people use this set of annoying techniques to goad you into response, or perhaps as some form of flirting -- but it's totally ineffective.

You don't answer their friendship card sent while you were offline; you don't answer their IM. So they IM again and say "Did you miss me? I guess you know I like the strong and silent type". I feel sorry for people who use this method as I can't imagine it ever works.

Or they create a drama, like "So, you're not talking to me. You came and went from the sim, I saw you on my radar, yet you didn't say 'hi'."

Well, I don't pay attention even to the radar I have when it is on nor do I feel the need to say 'hi' to everyone I know on a sim when I go to that sim. So sometimes they escalate:

"So I've concluded that you must hate me". Or "Aha, you must be an alt of John's. John would do this. Hi, John". Etc.

If you are like this in RL, I can understand why you don't have friends there.

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

7 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Or they create a drama, like "So, you're not talking to me. You came and went from the sim, I saw you on my radar, yet you didn't say 'hi'."

I cracked up laughing at this.  It made me think of a RL apartment building manager knocking on everyone's door just to say "Hi" as they walked along the hallways - which of course nobody would do, nor would anyone want them to.

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

4 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I cracked up laughing at this.  It made me think of a RL apartment building manager knocking on everyone's door just to say "Hi" as they walked along the hallways - which of course nobody would do, nor would anyone want them to.

actually you might be surprised that some people might have actually liked this in their community. not everyone is how you think they are.

[Selene Gregoire]

Yeah...

I got nuthin.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 6/5/2020 at 10:03 AM, LittleMe Jewell said:

I cracked up laughing at this.  It made me think of a RL apartment building manager knocking on everyone's door just to say "Hi" as they walked along the hallways - which of course nobody would do, nor would anyone want them to.

 

On 6/5/2020 at 2:18 PM, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

actually you might be surprised that some people might have actually liked this in their community. not everyone is how you think they are.

Well, my RL landlord is not going to go knock on every door in a complex of 4000 people, and I'm not going to go say hi on every sim with some 2000 customers. I have a newsletter to reach them, as my RL does. They can socialize among themselves, you know? If you mean a small town, population 3000, which I have lived in, yes, going down the street, not only do you say hi, you stop and visit with people on their front porches, and set a spell. But not all of us live in such places now.

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

51 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

 

Well, my RL landlord is not going to go knock on every door in a complex of 4000 people, and I'm not going to go say hi on every sim with some 2000 customers. I have a newsletter to reach them, as my RL does. They can socialize among themselves, you know? If you mean a small town, population 3000, which I have lived in, yes, going down the street, not only do you say hi, you stop and visit with people on their front porches, and set a spell. But not all of us live in such places now.

Right it doesn't work it all situations but it can work in some. A small apartment complex where when people enter or leave they all say hi and acknowledge each other like human beings. A small town where your walking through town and just being polite by saying hi as you walk by.

[Zephyr Starchild]

I'm going to be straight up honest here, I am a omnivert ( meaning I have both extrovert and Introvert tendencies ) But I also am painfully shy and have trust issues. I'm not likely to talk to you unless you put yourself in my orbit and talk first and then after feeling you out if I deem I can trust you I might allow some of the walls down and allow you to become my friend.  For people who have experienced Trama this is a normal response and randos who msg me normally either get blocked or ignored or both. 

Unless  you can tell me how you found my name and at least try to talk to me before adding.... the answer is no. 

[jwolf2262]

On 6/1/2020 at 3:06 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

So..... if I'm as shy in textual conversations as I am in verbal ones, there is something wrong with me that I need to look in to?

I'm pretty sure there's this little thing called patience that people don't have these days - and that's no fault of yours.

[YungCoconut Leeder]

I get it !!!! So many people are like a wall. 

[YungCoconut Leeder]

On 6/2/2020 at 9:18 PM, Tarina Sewell said:

 Sometimes you have to let friendships grow rather than force them upon introduction. 

 

 

Yea, fine

2 weeks later

Not much

 

[SelenyBouchard]

On 6/1/2020 at 2:44 PM, Orwar said:

   People continuously seem to misunderstand the purpose of this board; it's not about posting personal adverts, it's about sharing experiences and asking questions on the topic of how to make friends. The questions and answers are, however, spread thin across the multitude of threads that this board has, and continues, to spawn.

   So I thought, as an introverted, prejudiced misanthrope who, magically, has a contact list which in spite of regular grooming always has plenty of people on it, let's approach it from the other end and discuss how not to make friends.

   See it a bit as 'the pet peeve' thread, but focusing on socialising. Now I shouldn't have to point out that this thread, just as any other thread, is not the place for personal disputes and flaming as this is true for the entire forums - but I'll go ahead and say it anyway; if you're incapable of being in the same space as people with whom you may not fully agree with in all aspects of life, beat it.

 

   I'll start off with a peeve of mine which regards what I just mentioned, the 'personal adverts' that appear here. I have contacted quite a few people who made such threads over the years, but in the vast majority of the times I did, I found the person to be utterly unwilling to uphold even the most elementary essentials of social exchange, leaving conversational dead-ends at every response which mounts to more and more resistance to break through to connect with someone. For example:

• Hello there! I saw your thread on the 'Make Friends' section of the forums and thought I'd reach out. How are you doing?
• Hi.
• Everything going okay?
• Yeah, fine.
• What are you up to?
• Nothing much.

   This isn't even an exaggeration, this is how a fair amount of people actually respond to being contacted - usually even without the use of punctuation (which, to me, is a severe turn-off!). Could it be because I'm a scary man and a 'potential creep'? Perhaps in some cases, but I've tried it with Neph too and, granted, she may be scary as well, but then I don't tend to reach out to the sparkly unicorn fan club types either.

   Friendship, whether in Second Life or real life, isn't something you're entitled to; it's nothing people should have to serve you on a silver platter. For two people to get to know each other, there must be a mutual exchange of interest or curiosity. If you're unprepared to engage with people, advertising your wish to make friends is utterly pointless, and a waste of your time as well as that of all who respond to you. If you're feeling 'shy' when approached through a textual conversation, then I honestly couldn't tell you what's wrong with you - but rest assured, something needs looking into.

   P.S.

   This isn't a response to any recent event, thread, or any one person in particular - if you feel 'hit', don't worry; I've likely already forgotten all about you.

   So, what are some other ways not to make friends?

I totally agree with you. So many times I had that kind of conversation; while in their thread they seemed amazingly witty and funny to be around... messaging them inworld they're completely cold and disinterested.

I reached a point where I honestly don't even bother anymore... I rather hang with my small group of friends even though I'd actually would love have a bigger group of friends. It makes me sad because on the forum I've met my best friend.

 

A way to completely throw me off is: when you meet for the first time someone and they get immediately clingy as hell, like if them logging on second life or their happiness depend on my friendship. That's a HARD PASS for me. LOL

[Caroline Takeda]

On 6/1/2020 at 2:44 PM, Orwar said:

usually even without the use of punctuation (which, to me, is a severe turn-off!).

Really?

I mean, seriously?

Thats gives the term grammar nazi a new benchmark.

[Orwar]

3 hours ago, Caroline Takeda said:

Really?

I mean, seriously?

Thats gives the term grammar nazi a new benchmark.

   *That gives the term 'grammar Nazi' a new benchmark. Harrumphs. 

   Jokes aside, I don't find this particularly peculiar; and the statement isn't one that suggests a binary world where you either punctuate like a literary expert or never touch those keys on your keyboard - the occasional comma, to create a pause and set a cadence to your communication, makes it easier to understand and more difficult to misinterpret. Capitalising after full stops, at the start of new sentences, and when you use someone's name, makes it easier to read (and in the case of names, is avoiding being downright impolite) - especially in longer segments. The development of bicameral writing has been to our benefit, and to disregard this gives an air of ignorance and slothfulness.

   It's the same as with abbreviations; if you're so lazy that you can't even write out 'you' when addressing someone, chances are I won't find your brainless drivel of any interest. That said, I'm aware that there are people with various degrees of dyslexia, and people to whom English isn't their first language - I'm not a native English speaker myself - and I won't blatantly ignore people who fail to present acceptable English at first glance; but the vast majority of the communication I participate in here is entirely textual, and if you shift the effort of communication to me to try deciphering your half-arsed droning, I'm likely to lose interest fairly quickly. If one intends on spending any considerable amount of time trying to make friends and build relationships in Second Life, I don't think that it's too much to ask that you spend that tenth of a second to hit the comma key on occasion.

[Velk Kerang]

On 6/1/2020 at 4:22 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

My problem is that I have a hard time turning down a friendship request from anyone that I know casually inworld or here on the forums.  However, I am also NOT a talky type person.  I have always sucked at small talk or any sort of chit-chat.  Even as a teenager on the phone all evening with friends, they pretty much did all of the talking.  So when people on my friends list IM me, I end up giving some of the dead-end type answers to questions and then letting the conversation lag into silence that goes on forever.

Maybe I should just always follow up ever friend request with a comment telling them not to actually expect me to communicate.

 

See I am kind of the same way. We'd probably get along fine then. lol What I actually get annoyed by is when I get dragged to these so called business meetings when I am doing someone a favor and helping people out on here and people are adding each other which is fine, but there is always that one person in the room who will say something like I want to talk more before I add you to my list. Then I have to say well I guess you ain't adding me then because we ain't gonna chat that much and I only ever offer friendship once. Lmao!!!!😁😎

[Kitkat Starlight]

random friend requests which leading to them asking for sex, or flirting up to sex -.-.

like hi I barely know you and you want what??? lol

[Velk Kerang]

30 minutes ago, JenniferWind said:

random friend requests which leading to them asking for sex, or flirting up to sex -.-.

like hi I barely know you and you want what??? lol

Whaaattt?! You mean you don't want to have The Sex with them? lol I think a lot of them see it playing out like this in their minds right until they run in to the reality wall. lol 😎

 

[Kitkat Starlight]

16 hours ago, Velk Kerang said:

Whaaattt?! You mean you don't want to have The Sex with them? lol I think a lot of them see it playing out like this in their minds right until they run in to the reality wall. lol 😎

 

Omg LMAO 

[Bagnu]

On 6/19/2020 at 12:44 PM, Orwar said:

   *That gives the term 'grammar Nazi' a new benchmark. Harrumphs. 

   Jokes aside, I don't find this particularly peculiar; and the statement isn't one that suggests a binary world where you either punctuate like a literary expert or never touch those keys on your keyboard - the occasional comma, to create a pause and set a cadence to your communication, makes it easier to understand and more difficult to misinterpret. Capitalising after full stops, at the start of new sentences, and when you use someone's name, makes it easier to read (and in the case of names, is avoiding being downright impolite) - especially in longer segments. The development of bicameral writing has been to our benefit, and to disregard this gives an air of ignorance and slothfulness.

   It's the same as with abbreviations; if you're so lazy that you can't even write out 'you' when addressing someone, chances are I won't find your brainless drivel of any interest. That said, I'm aware that there are people with various degrees of dyslexia, and people to whom English isn't their first language - I'm not a native English speaker myself - and I won't blatantly ignore people who fail to present acceptable English at first glance; but the vast majority of the communication I participate in here is entirely textual, and if you shift the effort of communication to me to try deciphering your half-arsed droning, I'm likely to lose interest fairly quickly. If one intends on spending any considerable amount of time trying to make friends and build relationships in Second Life, I don't think that it's too much to ask that you spend that tenth of a second to hit the comma key on occasion.

What I care about is the CONTENT of the message!!! I had a friend in highschool who's spelling was so bad that our teacher accused him of plagiarism on an essay because it was so well written. I was in the room with them they wrote part of it, so I knew. I ended up informing our teacher of that, because it wasn't fair!!!

[Orwar]

40 minutes ago, Bagnu said:

What I care about is the CONTENT of the message!!! I had a friend in highschool who's spelling was so bad that our teacher accused him of plagiarism on an essay because it was so well written. I was in the room with them they wrote part of it, so I knew. I ended up informing our teacher of that, because it wasn't fair!!!

   I used to have a classmate who almost always sat in the back of the classroom. But one day, someone took his seat, and he had to sit right up by the teacher!

   Yes, content is important, that goes without saying .. Or so I thought, anyway. 

[Bagnu]

Depends on the content...

Hopefully your friend learned a bit extra. The closer i sat to the teacher, the more I understood !!!

Edited June 22, 2020 by Bagnu

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

2 hours ago, Bagnu said:

Depends on the content...

Hopefully your friend learned a bit extra. The closer i sat to the teacher, the more I understood !!!

was i the only smart one.. you hide in the middle of the class room.. the teacher will invariably call on the front and back kids more than the middle kids.

[Dano Seale]

If you sat at the front of the class at my school it was your job to wake the teacher up at the end of the lesson! 

[Bagnu]

44 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

was i the only smart one.. you hide in the middle of the class room.. the teacher will invariably call on the front and back kids more than the middle kids.

I never wanted or needed to hide lol!!!  I did very well in school!!! I've always been "controversial" both RL and SL. It's my thing!!!

And of course as an SL Escort, I'm not hiding!!!

Edited June 23, 2020 by Bagnu