Friends From Every Spectrum.

[Bagnu]

It's interesting how I have made friends from the extreme to the timid here. I experience that in RL as well, and I'm truly wondering how that can happen. What is actually the basis of friendship then?

[Jordyn McGregor]

Not disparaging your friendships in any way shape or form, but something I have often wondered about from reading these boards, facebook etc.

I often see threads from people looking for friends and replies saying "Add me, we'll be friends blah blah blah" and I often wonder how that goes.  Do they end up becoming friends, or do they talk once or twice and then become a placeholder name on the friends list?  Are they someone you only talk to when no-one else is online, or do you make an effort to hang out and talk often?  Or do you add them, talk once and then discover they are a psycho hose beast and you regret reaching out to them?

As for me, the majority (like 80% of it) is related to my SL work, and I have maybe 2 or 3 people on it I talk to regularly.  Then there is all my alts who only talk to me when they want money to go shopping!!!

Edited August 9, 2020 by Jordan Whitt

[Bagnu]

35 minutes ago, Jordan Whitt said:

Not disparaging your friendships in any way shape or form, but something I have often wondered about from reading these boards, facebook etc.

I often see threads from people looking for friends and replies saying "Add me, we'll be friends blah blah blah" and I often wonder how that goes.  Do they end up becoming friends, or do they talk once or twice and then become a placeholder name on the friends list?  Are they someone you only talk to when no-one else is online, or do you make an effort to hang out and talk often?  Or do you add them, talk once and then discover they are a psycho hose beast and you regret reaching out to them?

As for me, the majority (like 80% of it) is related to my SL work, and I have maybe 2 or 3 people on it I talk to regularly.  Then there is all my alts who only talk to me when they want money to go shopping!!!

This can vary of course. I have a core group of friends inworld, and here in the forums. It all varies according to when I can be inworld according to timezones. and privacy. I am very friendly so I would be happy to talk to them anytime and enjoy hanging out  with them. I really don't have deliberate placeholders. Sometimes it's difficult for me to do anything with my AV because I get IM's, and I don't ignore them. It's not all SL work related for me regarding friendships , so I have friends from everywhere. Inworld only from the adult community though

I do make friends very quickly, but it's true it doesn't always work. I have only found one true "psycho". RL psycho. 

Basically, I talk to about to about 7 people regularly when I'm not with them, and more when I go to work. I'm just guessing on the amount though. 

And lol you talk to me all the time!

[Orwar]

1 hour ago, Jordan Whitt said:

Do they end up becoming friends, or do they talk once or twice and then become a placeholder name on the friends list?

   Usually the kind of people who turn to the forums for friends are the people who fail to make friend in-world due to their abysmal social skills. Whilst that's not always the case, the majority of the people I've reached out to have been the sort who barely manage to uphold some sort of basic etiquette of communication, who with every line cause a conversational dead end and who show no interest whatsoever. 

   . . . And occasionally, when you confront them about it and ask why it is they never even try to hold up their end of a conversation, they accuse you of 'constantly trying to get into their knickers'. Like, I'm terribly sorry you got that impression from 'Hello there! I saw your thread on the forum and thought I'd reach out. How are you today?'. Shrugs.

[Jordyn McGregor]

1 minute ago, Orwar said:

 . . . And occasionally, when you confront them about it and ask why it is they never even try to hold up their end of a conversation, they accuse you of 'constantly trying to get into their knickers'. Like, I'm terribly sorry you got that impression from 'Hello there! I saw your thread on the forum and thought I'd reach out. How are you today?'. Shrugs.

Orwar talks to me inworld at least every other day...and has not once tried to get into my knickers!  And yes, I do wear them!!!

[Orwar]

Just now, Jordan Whitt said:

Orwar talks to me inworld at least every other day

   I mean. The days I actually go in-world, and you're also online, anyway. 

2 minutes ago, Jordan Whitt said:

and has not once tried to get into my knickers!

   But twice!

   . . . I mean, what, who, me? I'd never. 

[Jordyn McGregor]

5 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   I mean. The days I actually go in-world, and you're also online, anyway. 

Yeah true.  I have been even more anti-social lately.  I have a really bad habit of letting SL stuff get to me and I need to take some time out.

5 minutes ago, Orwar said:

But twice!

   . . . I mean, what, who, me? I'd never. 

Hang on...

Edited August 9, 2020 by Jordan Whitt

[Bagnu]

11 minutes ago, Jordan Whitt said:

Orwar talks to me inworld at least every other day...and has not once tried to get into my knickers!  And yes, I do wear them!!!

So??? 

[Jordyn McGregor]

1 minute ago, Bagnu said:

So??? 

I was giving him a reference. 

[Bagnu]

Just now, Jordan Whitt said:

I was giving him a reference. 

Sorry.Got it!

[Jordyn McGregor]

1 minute ago, Bagnu said:

Sorry.Got it!

 

[Orwar]

8 minutes ago, Jordan Whitt said:

Hang on...

   . . . Unlike every-- Nope. I'm going to behave, for once. 

[Jordyn McGregor]

2 hours ago, Jordan Whitt said:

I often see threads from people looking for friends and replies saying "Add me, we'll be friends blah blah blah" and I often wonder how that goes.  Do they end up becoming friends, or do they talk once or twice and then become a placeholder name on the friends list?  Are they someone you only talk to when no-one else is online, or do you make an effort to hang out and talk often?  Or do you add them, talk once and then discover they are a psycho hose beast and you regret reaching out to them?

Btw - this comment wasn't aimed specifically at @Bagnu.  I am interested to hear other opinions and thoughts, even experiences on this...cos as i said, I often wonder about it.

Kinda like the person in the employment section who is always "interested" in all the job vacancies...but that's another topic!

[Lewis Luminos]

I think @Nick0678 got it right in one of the other threads here. "Ease of interaction".  Friendship is not something you can pick and choose. You can't decide "I am going to be friends with you". It's something that happens over time. Sometimes years.

What you can decide is "I am going to be friendly with you", which is an entirely different thing, and this is something that you CAN decide.  As I am a club owner, I get frequent requests from guests to add me as a friend, particularly if we have had an enjoyable conversation during an event. I nearly always accept. But this doesn't mean that we've entered into a new kind of relationship or that they are somehow "special". It just means "Hey, I enjoyed our chat and would be happy to have another like it next time we're both online".  Maybe we don't speak again and I will eventually drop you quietly from my list. But maybe we do. Maybe we have more such conversations. Then maybe we decide that we'd like to hang out together, do things together. This is where Nick's "ease of interaction" comes in. When it's easy to talk to you, when I feel relaxed and comfortable in your company, when I enjoy the time we spend together. Those are the signs that a friendship is developing.

Friendships don't grow on their own. They need to be cultivated. This means, initiating conversations regularly, not always waiting for them to IM you. If you don't want to IM them first, they are not your friend. Likewise, if they never want to IM you either, they are not your friend. You cannot make friends with someone you never talk to. (The exception is friendships that have already been established but go silent for whatever reason).

I think SL (and most other social media sites) make a mistake when they name their contact list "Friends". It should be just "Contacts". Adding someone to your "Friends list" in SL is the equivalent of giving someone your phone number or email address and inviting them to call or message you again. By calling it Friends, it gives the impression that by adding someone to your list, you are somehow in a deeper and more meaningful relationship with them when that isn't necessarily the case. Flickr is one of the few social media sites that does it right - they call it "Followers/Following" and they have a separate subcategory within that which is called "Friends".

A person on my friends list is merely "someone I have talked to and I think they are okay". A person I consider a friend is someone I know well, I like them a lot, I trust them and hold them in deep personal regard. And it necessarily requires that these feelings and qualities are mutual. That they also know me well, trust me and hold me in deep personal regard.  If it's not the same in both directions, we're acquaintances or contacts, not friends.

 

[Ren Toxx]

On 8/9/2020 at 3:47 AM, Bagnu said:

What is actually the basis of friendship then?

Enjoying each and every time you deal with the other.

[Talligurl]

On 8/8/2020 at 10:43 PM, Jordan Whitt said:

Not disparaging your friendships in any way shape or form, but something I have often wondered about from reading these boards, facebook etc.

I often see threads from people looking for friends and replies saying "Add me, we'll be friends blah blah blah" and I often wonder how that goes.  Do they end up becoming friends, or do they talk once or twice and then become a placeholder name on the friends list?  Are they someone you only talk to when no-one else is online, or do you make an effort to hang out and talk often?  Or do you add them, talk once and then discover they are a psycho hose beast and you regret reaching out to them?

As for me, the majority (like 80% of it) is related to my SL work, and I have maybe 2 or 3 people on it I talk to regularly.  Then there is all my alts who only talk to me when they want money to go shopping!!!

For me I have a very long friends list and a short list of actual friends, and some of the people on the short list are not even on the long list, but they are people who frequent the same places as I do and when we see each other we talk to each other. 

[Bagnu]

On 8/9/2020 at 1:24 AM, Jordan Whitt said:

Btw - this comment wasn't aimed specifically at @Bagnu.  I am interested to hear other opinions and thoughts, even experiences on this...cos as i said, I often wonder about it.

Kinda like the person in the employment section who is always "interested" in all the job vacancies...but that's another topic!

I thought I answered this, but maybe I referenced something I shouldn't have and it got removed. I don't have placeholders, and like spend time with my friends. Just like RL, we are our own people, and friendships drift in and out according to what we happen to be doing at the.time. I find I spend time with people according to that, from both our ends. I have only ever known one psycho beast, and I blocked them.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

On 8/8/2020 at 10:43 PM, Jordan Whitt said:

Not disparaging your friendships in any way shape or form, but something I have often wondered about from reading these boards, facebook etc.

I often see threads from people looking for friends and replies saying "Add me, we'll be friends blah blah blah" and I often wonder how that goes.  Do they end up becoming friends, or do they talk once or twice and then become a placeholder name on the friends list?  Are they someone you only talk to when no-one else is online, or do you make an effort to hang out and talk often?  Or do you add them, talk once and then discover they are a psycho hose beast and you regret reaching out to them?

As for me, the majority (like 80% of it) is related to my SL work, and I have maybe 2 or 3 people on it I talk to regularly.  Then there is all my alts who only talk to me when they want money to go shopping!!!

I try to talk to those on my friends list if we are both online at the same time.. If i haven't seen them online in a few days/week i will drop them an offline to ask if all is well and or if they need anything i can help with. There are some on my list that have left over the years, some voluntarily, others were taken from us.. I leave them there as a reminder of the good times. 

There are a few on my list that will never start conversations.. Those i struggle with removing as i added them for at one point because we were actual friends. Over the time, they stopped talking. One of these days i will clean house and end up with just those that matter and the ones remembered. 

 

[BelindaN]

I'm with Lewis on this subject, although I think it gets way more complex. 

Friends list is always compromised by time zones first and foremost. Example I have a friend in California. We managed to explore D/S briefly despite timings. Now we rarely meet but regularly IM as I leave and she gets up. 

I would say that at any time, less than ten percent of my friends list is in world. I don't chat to them all every day. And I'm busy in world and so are they. 

So its multi layered. Some are just contacts I enjoy chatting with occasionally. Some are old friends who are always there if I need them. Sometimes I do. Some I let use my house as home base. Some have not been in world on my watch for months. Some I just meet for photos.

Then there are my close orbit friends. The ones I do meet in world. The ones I collaborate with. The ones I share SL ideals with. The ones I chat with every day. These become part of the fabric of the SL experience. This is what makes SL so immersive. 

[Bagnu]

I go back to my original question really. I am a very dirty and kinky girl, in SL but yet I have friends who aren't even sexual. How does that happen?  

[Rowan Amore]

8 minutes ago, Bagnu said:

I go back to my original question really. I am a very dirty and kinky girl, in SL but yet I have friends who aren't even sexual. How does that happen?  

Do you base your real world friendships on a person's sexual behavior?  I have 2 sister who I'm close to and I have no idea what type of sex they're into.  You're also fairly new to SL.  I have a feeling as time goes by, if you're still inworld, your interests will change or modify to some degree.  It happens to a lot of people.  The random sexual RP with people losses it's appeal and they find other things to do and voila! your whole world expands.

[Alwin Alcott]

12 minutes ago, Bagnu said:

I go back to my original question really. I am a very dirty and kinky girl, in SL but yet I have friends who aren't even sexual. How does that happen?  

Sexual friendships is not really where this topic went around. And not how the others took your orinigal post. Many people are simply not interested in sex, not every discussion has to go that way.
 

[Bagnu]

I am starting to slowly find though, that my friends here are extremely sexual, and incredibly kinky, even if they don't initially appear to be,

[Alwin Alcott]

when you fish in a pond with only, or mainly, goldfish, you will catch goldfish.. if you try in the sea you will have more variance.
Same as the bait you use, when only using worms you'll catch only the ones that like worms.

[Rowan Amore]

57 minutes ago, Bagnu said:

I am starting to slowly find though, that my friends here are extremely sexual, and incredibly kinky, even if they don't initially appear to be,

Of course.  Since you mentioned you are only in adult areas, the majority of people will be interested in adult activities.  But as Alwin said, once you cast a larger net, you'll find more variety.  Again, you're new to sl and seems to have focused on one community.  When that gets boring and trust me, it will, you will see that people have all kinds of interests and some will be the same as yours. Books, movies, history, art.  So the same things you have in common with your friends in RL, will be the same things you'll find in friends here.