Ren Toxx

People TPing into your home.

That’s like covering the pack of cigarettes with a handkerchief, so you won’t see it. Yeah, you won’t, but it’s still there, and you’re still addicted. Analyze what stresses you in SL. Too many crappy friends? Be more selective, remove the bad ones, and either weather the storm or mute them. Shopaholism? Stop to actually ask yourself what stuff you need, as in “it will really improve my SL experience”, and what you don’t (the usual “just in case”, or “cos cute, tho I have no Earthly idea when—if ever—I’ll actually use it”). And so on and so forth. Either way, find out what it is. Stress doesn’t come out of nowhere. Also, you say that you keep logging back. While addictions can be sneakier, there’s still something you get out of it—and it’s not stress. So what is it? Whatever it is, focus more on it. Friends with which to laugh & have fun? Keep on it. In fact, stop whatever’s stressing you and use the time to find more friends like that. And sure, if you find out there’s nothing you actually enjoy of SL, quit. You wouldn’t even need to be stressed about it, it’s enough that you’re not enjoying it either. I don’t enjoy chess, so I don’t play chess. I’m just saying, attack the cause, not the symptoms 😉

Probably. I tend to hang out in voice-enabled areas, where I know the average opinion on this is visibly different; but then again, because they’re voice-enabled, they’re going to attract people with their own leaning for voice. Still, overall and based on going around places that just happen to have it enabled (rather than it being a defining trait of the place), yes, the average in-world take on voice doesn’t seem quite as much “against” as this. Maybe, but it’d be very mild. I have a vague impression that younger people can be less patient about texting (either typing themselves, and especially if the conversation consists of more than “hru?” and “lol”; or reading what others type).

’nuff said, generally. One other thing I don’t like of many voicers is that they tend to be exclusivists, without even realizing (or admitting) it—so they’re not compelled to try and moderate themselves in that sense: once they find someone else to voice with, they will mostly ignore anyone who texts, no matter if it’s in the same conversation. Even if voicing technically leaves you freer to look at the screen and see what’s going on, they still tend to develop a kind of ‘tunnel vision’ and ignore anyone who won’t voice. Alas, some go as far as resenting it if most or all people in a voice-enabled area choose to text anyway, for their own individual and perfectly valid reasons. If you point out that “voice is an option, not an obligation”, they’ll say, ‘sure, sure, I understand that‘. But they don’t, not really—they will keep questioning it, pressuring others to shift to voice, grumbling about it. Not actually tolerating it, despite assurances to the contrary. I have some friends I constantly text to while they voice to me, and I have no more problem with their voicing than they do with my texting. All it takes is accepting others’ preferences, hard as that seems to be for some.

Or, we start telling them, just to enjoy seeing them shuffling their feet uncomfortably, desperately trying to decide whether to join in, or to avoid it like the minefield that it is, with the famous quote: “it’s a trap!!” 😊

Mine is a mallrat.

Nah.

Yes and no. Some people have a sense of humour. Just sayin’

No, persevere. There’s something to be said for people who aren’t afraid to speak up in local, and it broadens the possibility of anyone answering, without sending the same IM to everyone 😉

I would say “playing SL is hard”, period. I would also say, do you want it to be easy? Tic-tac-toe easy, that you can manage it all in a couple hours and then there’s nothing else new to learn, no new challenge to master, nothing to make you feel like you’re still going ahead and not be bored?  First, you don’t “need” a nicer avatar. If you feel your avatar has to do the talking for you, you’re doing it wrong. SL is a bit more than a fashion model runway. I’m not saying there’s no people and places where that happens... I’m saying you don’t have to automatically enslave yourself to those, and do everything they expect or ask of you. Second, 10% of a huge Marketplace is still a lot. It’s only really insuficcient if you don’t even look at it because you’re somehow protesting that it should be 50% and you won’t look at any of it until it reaches that percentage. May I suggest a possible way to succeed more than you apparently have so far? Drop the defeatist, self-victimist, “born-to-be-shunned” attitude already. One instance of it may elicit an “aww” or two, perhaps a couple pats in the back... but if you’re like that all the time, there’s only so much anyone can take of it, especially those who come to SL with their own baggage, and the last thing they need is more downers. Let me put it another way. Regardless of those apparent‘difficulties’, many males succeed wildly in SL—some actually welcome the challenge, if any. Some make incredibly good avatars for themselves. Some gather a huge list of friends—of both genders—whom they have a lot of fun with. Quite a few do both things. And no, these aren’t rocket scientists I’m talking about. They’re just people who try. And if they can, so can you.

More places dedicated to kill and/or f**k everything that moves, and half of the things that don’t?

Where is @Love Zhaoying with his popcorn just when you need him? Tsk, tsk.

I didn’t know you were this mean! 😯 😭 P.S: What humiliation techniques do you use? Asking for a friend...

Whoever goes postal on you for a “hi”, you’re entitled to think she’s not just judgmental but quite possibly paranoid, and no one would blame you for disliking those. But out of such extremes, you also say that some just seem ‘reluctant’ to answer your “hi”... and you all but assume that that’s their thinking. Well, there you go: you’re assuming things, too. It’s a generalization, which is why you’re getting the equivalent generalization for an answer: “experience”. Of course not all (or even most) women assume that. Some could be simply half-AFK, busy, not good conversationalists... or merely waiting to see what’s the actual purpose of the conversation, if any at all—there’s ongoing threads on the issue of people opening with a “hi” and leaving it almost exactly there, or at any rate charging the other with almost the entire weight of the conversation. Sex isn’t all that often mentioned, and believe me: in some cases, I almost ended up wishing they did ask for it, because then at least I’d know, after half an hour of inanities, what in the name of all bleeping hells they wanted. My point being: many of those conversations lasted that much, precisely because I did not assume it was about that. I wouldn’t have even responded to the initial “hi”, otherwise.

If I had to pay that to get a lover, a friend or a loyal host, I’d have bigger problems to worry about.