How do you feel when someone offers unsolicited to give you a "better looking" avatar?

[Persephone Emerald]

I've had this happen twice to me. The first was a guy who showed an interest in me and I reciprocated because he sounded interesting. He ended up being too invested in defining me on his terms, and even though we'd had some pixel-sex, I ended up blocking him. In his case I said "thank you" when he gave me a folder full of shape, skins, clothes and make-up. I tossed out the shape, skins and clothes, but still use the make-up from time to time.

The second was a guy I'd only recently met, but he looked at my RL picture on my profile, said I was "too big" for his tastes in RL, then offered me a folder to make-over my avatar. In his case I just laughed and said, "I've been in SL a long time and I like how my avatar looks."

Maybe I haven't used a male avatar enough to experience this from the other side, but I try to not tell other people how I think their avatar should look, unless it's a male avatar who I know is looking to get more interest from female avatars. I've suggested to a few guys that they should get a mesh body, but only if virtual hook-ups are their interest. 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Ayashe Ninetails]

Only happened to me once a few years ago - back when I was still fiddling with my female day-to-day look. Kind of my own fault - I was laser-focused on getting Maitreya to be super realistic and in proportion and getting my damn shoulders and hips and waist and thighs just right. This was when I was still attempting to be fully human. My boyfriend at the time offered to send me some other girl's shape numbers. Nah, I'm good fam.

These days, now that I've embraced the jank and ditched the realism in favor of the "undead chic" look I've been wearing as my default appearance, nobody ever mentions it. I mean, if some guy wanted to turn me into his dream girl, he'd have a whole lot of freakin' work ahead of him! I am not an easy target for that anymore. 😄

Edited March 18, 2022 by Ayashe Ninetails

[Stephanie Misfit]

I had it happen a while back, with a guy who was hitting on me. He was making quite the sales pitch and one of his key points was that he could fix up my avatar (guess he was not keen on the curvy, gothic thing I had going on at the time). His avatar was hideous and seriously out of date. I would not have cared if he was offering to spend money on me, no way did I want to be made over by that guy. I ended the conversation pretty abruptly, but without any criticism of his appearance.

 

 

[Harper Held]

Oh lord the last time I had that happen was years and years and years back -someone offered to buy me an outfit in a display if I agreed to have slex with him. Didn't happen because I demanded the skin, hair and shape as well... 😈

[purrrkitten]

This hasn't happened to me in a while but it would depend on my relationship with the person and their intentions. Though at this point I am very happy with my avi and wouldn't really care about any negative opinions.

Actually now that I think about it I have gotten a couple of messages from randoms telling me they think my avi is too skinny lol.

I don't offer unsolicited advice unless you count sending a quick message if I see someone who forgot to alpha something out or some obvious mishap like that. I consider that more of a "you have lipstick on your teeth" situation than unsolicited advice. 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I've had it happen quite a few times,  I get comments on my ears at times, but nobody has a good set of fox looking ears and I'm beyond picky with the sox avatar.  andi is my profile picture and yeah.  them ears are my ears, but I can get others if they are better AND I can texture them myself.

[Robberinthemuseum]

3 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I've had this happen twice to me. The first was a guy who showed an interest in me and I reciprocated because he sounded interesting. He ended up being too invested in defining me on his terms, and even though we'd had some pixel-sex, I ended up blocking him. In his case I said "thank you" when he gave me a folder full of shape, skins, clothes and make-up. I tossed out the shape, skins and clothes, but still use the make-up from time to time.

The second was a guy I'd only recently met, but he looked at my RL picture on my profile, said I was "too big" for his tastes in RL, then offered me a folder to make-over my avatar. In his case I just laughed and said, "I've been in SL a long time and I like how my avatar looks."

Maybe I haven't used a male avatar enough to experience this from the other side, but I try to not tell other people how I think their avatar should look, unless it's a male avatar who I know is looking to get more interest from female avatars. I've suggested to a few guys that they should get a mesh body, but only if virtual hook-ups are their interest. 

I don't know why he was hassling you in the first place. If he needed something really specific, why didn't he just make an alt and go f+ck himself?

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

 

The second was a guy I'd only recently met, but he looked at my RL picture on my profile, said I was "too big" for his tastes in RL, then offered me a folder to make-over my avatar. In his case I just laughed and said, "I've been in SL a long time and I like how my avatar looks."

 

The reply to that one kind of writes itself, doesn't it? *wink*

[So Whimsy]

Never happened to me, but if it would, I would just walk away...and give them the finger while I'm at it.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

It's all about context.

I'd imagine it's pretty universal to feel annoyed/upset if a stranger comes to you like "Why don't you look exactly like I want you to look? Aren't you going to fix that to appeal to me?"

Meanwhile there are an infinite number of situations where even people you don't personally know can give you feedback on the look of your avatar, even when it isn't explicitly asked for.

Like if you're discussing modding your avatar in local chat in a crowd in a sandbox, or the recent "how to respectfully let someone know their hands are disproportionately small" thread, or friends-of-friends giving suggestions while you're all hanging out in good spirit.

It's not all automatically bad or disrespectful.

[ChinRey]

If they expect slex in return or if they want to spend a lot of L$ on my avatar... ummm... no, maybe not.

But if all they want to do is play dressup with my avatar, yes, let's do it! It's fun and every now and then I get some really good ideas from it too.

[Sammy Huntsman]

Happened to me once, I spent a crap tonne of money and I got dumped days after. This was back when mesh bodies and mesh heads on males, didn't really line up well. So I wanted to stay system until it improved. But my dumb butt had a thing for this chick, and basically did as she asked. I will never do that again. I have put too much time and money into my look and love it. So I am not gonna change it, even if someone pays for it.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

5 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I've had it happen quite a few times,  I get comments on my ears at times, but nobody has a good set of fox looking ears and I'm beyond picky with the sox avatar.  andi is my profile picture and yeah.  them ears are my ears, but I can get others if they are better AND I can texture them myself.

Aww, I think your ears are cute! I use the bento set that's included with the Whisk Red Fox skins and haven't gone looking for others, so I have no suggestions other than wear what you personally like best! I think your current set suits you - from what I can see of your profile pic.

 

[Liaa Nova]

When I was new to Second Life, back in 2006, I had family who had already been here for three months. I was happily creating my rl hair with the sliders (remember that anyone?), and my then sl Mom took one look and said 'it looks terrible dear' and dragged me off for some flexi hair 🤣. She got away with it as she'd already had time to learn what she was doing and had known me a long time from before SL (plus, she was right, it did look terrible)

Apart from that, mostly it'll be guys wanting me to get a mesh head (I have one now), to change my hair colour, body size etc, to which they get a comment along the lines of one I saw above: to make aa female avi and go **** themselves

[Maitimo]

I've had a couple of people tell me that I'm too tall, too big, out of proportion for a human.  (I'm 7'1" and my thighs are thicker than most female avatars' waists). 

My answer to that is that I'm not human.

[Krystina Ferraris]

10 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I've had this happen twice to me. The first was a guy who showed an interest in me and I reciprocated because he sounded interesting. He ended up being too invested in defining me on his terms, and even though we'd had some pixel-sex, I ended up blocking him. In his case I said "thank you" when he gave me a folder full of shape, skins, clothes and make-up. I tossed out the shape, skins and clothes, but still use the make-up from time to time.

The second was a guy I'd only recently met, but he looked at my RL picture on my profile, said I was "too big" for his tastes in RL, then offered me a folder to make-over my avatar. In his case I just laughed and said, "I've been in SL a long time and I like how my avatar looks."

Maybe I haven't used a male avatar enough to experience this from the other side, but I try to not tell other people how I think their avatar should look, unless it's a male avatar who I know is looking to get more interest from female avatars. I've suggested to a few guys that they should get a mesh body, but only if virtual hook-ups are their interest. 

No maybes, anyone who does that to me is blocked and all their $h1t tossed in the bin 👍🏻

[Kathlen Onyx]

This happened to me once. A guy I met at a venue that I saw for about a week wanted me to get the same skin/shape his "friend" had that goes to the same venue but is female. Apparently they live a block away from each other in RL, yada yada.  He even went so far as to have the girl contact me and send me her shape and skin.  After doing a bit of investigating I came to the conclusion that the girl was actually his alt or more so the guy was her alt. When I asked him if he was really her he freaked out, called me some nasty names and never logged in again. I'm guessing I was probably right.  BTW, her skin/shape looked awful and I never had any intention of changing my looks and would never change my looks for anyone but me.  The most I do is ask their favorite color and I might incorporate that in a clothing item I might wear on a date but that's as far as I'll go.  

 

[Cali Souther]

Several years back,  the person I was dating tried to "influence" my appearance quite a bit - but failed overall.   I tend to change my look often,  and half the fun of SL is playing with my dollie.     

[Silent Mistwalker]

7 hours ago, Robberinthemuseum said:

I don't know why he was hassling you in the first place. If he needed something really specific, why didn't he just make an alt and go f+ck himself?

[LunaRavencroft]

Happened to me, twice. First time, I got upgraded to mesh [hey, free SLink body lol], but then, got told I didn't look good. Things happened, but, they ended up blocked/deleted.

But, if someone gives you a free folder, first of all, drop that folder in fire because, that's freebie level stuff.

[Kate Ayashi]

I had this sort of thing happen once right after I got back into SL a year ago. The general conversation went something like this:

[him]: Hey, your avatar isn't looking especially sexy, can I help with that? I can give you some clothes and stuff.
(a few seconds reading his profile and seeing a note something like "dominant women are an oxymoron")
[me]: Only if I can help you fix your blatant misogyny.

He said bad words to me then. I blocked and de-rendered him in reply.

And he wasn't even cute. Just your SL typical overly muscled, tattooed dude with a hipster haircut and beard.

I can buy my own stuff and stumble through skins and shapes and BOM all by myself, and ask for help when I hit a snag. Men, I tell ya.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Kate Ayashi

[purrrkitten]

1 hour ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

This happened to me once. A guy I met at a venue that I saw for about a week wanted me to get the same skin/shape his "friend" had that goes to the same venue but is female. Apparently they live a block away from each other in RL, yada yada.  He even went so far as to have the girl contact me and send me her shape and skin.  After doing a bit of investigating I came to the conclusion that the girl was actually his alt or more so the guy was her alt. When I asked him if he was really her he freaked out, called me some nasty names and never logged in again. I'm guessing I was probably right.  BTW, her skin/shape looked awful and I never had any intention of changing my looks and would never change my looks for anyone but me.  The most I do is ask their favorite color and I might incorporate that in a clothing item I might wear on a date but that's as far as I'll go.  

 

She wanted a twin?

[Panteleeva]

when guy at the beach asked why i do not use HD nipples from Maitreya Hud and then got crazy when i asked thats my choice what to use. lol

[Rowan Amore]

I'll let you know if or when someone has the balls to do so.  😁

[Ayashe Ninetails]

1 minute ago, Kate Ayashi said:

[him]: Hey, your avatar isn't looking especially sexy, can I help with that?

LMAO I'm dying. What a line. I'd LOVE for someone to say that to me.

"Hey, your avatar isn't looking especially sexy, can I help with that?" Sure buddy have at it. I'll be right over.

Older look but still a hard favorite - I need to update it for my current heads.