Miranda Ghanduhar

The whole engaged and married thing, well, that is kind of a crock in my mind, but some people consider it a commitment of some kind. I look at it as sort of "going steady" lol. However, there are many many in sl who don't believe in it and who don't expect the "marriage" to last much longer than the wedding reception. And that about sums it up. I think showing off an engagement ring is a status thing and the wedding is the same for females in sl. A way to show off just how desireable you are. And some just put down a partner to keep from getting hit on, so I've been told. DJs do it. Not all, but some because they get a lot of stalkers and groupies who follow them around and give them unwanted attention. You have to remember sl is the internet and the internet has its fair share of strange types just as the real outside world does. In fact sl isn't much different. Anyway, I knock around sl a few days a week. If I see you online, I'll pop into your IM and say hi. :matte-motes-smile:

There are a few problems with making friends in sl. I've experienced some of these and I've seen them happen to others. One of them is that you may become really close to someone and believe you are tight friends when one day they just disappear from sl never to return, or in a slightly different scenario, they come down with some supposed fatal disease and "die" never to return. Yes, I've read of this happening to a very beloved member of a group and later it came out that the person was never ill, they just wanted to be free of commitments in sl. This can be quite disturbing when it happens and I believe it happens more than many would assume. Another issue is the problem with other friends entering the picture connected to either side of the friendship. Sometimes it can enlarge the group of friends and everyone benefits but sometimes it can lead to jealousy. Jealousy is an ugly thing. I've heard about people doing immature things due to jealousy. The things you have told others in confidence will suddenly become weapons used against you and may threaten your feelings of security and certainly ruin your experience of sl. I personally know people who have quit after having had friendships fall apart over jealousies. We all picture how great having friends would be, but quite a few in sl have been through the above experiences in one form or another so they are cautious about jumping into friendships so it's not likely you at all. Don't let that discourage you. If you really want to find friends, you still can. I've met some really nice folk on sims I moved to where there was a community spirit. I met another by pure accident when I tped to a non english speaking sim and she was the only one speaking english there. You never know when or where. Another place I've found friendly people are at live music performances. I've found about 4 or 5 performers I like to hear perform live in sl. These are popular people (you can tell by looking on the map where they are performing and seeing how many green dots are piled into the sim during their performance), so they always have a lot of the same folk coming to their shows and after a few shows, since you already have one thing in common (namely being a fan) it's pretty easy to get to know the regulars. Use the search function under "events" tab for live music to find live performances. And apropos the live music performances, for a while I belonged to a group of performance supporters who would gather to give support to various musical performers. They sent out notices as to where they would be next and you'd just show up and join in the group. They were super friendly and welcoming, lots of friendly chat amongst them and easy to fit into. You could participate as much and as often as you wished. I dropped out tho due to getting too many notices and I can't remember the name, but I remember they invited me when I was at a live event at Key West or Sherrie's where they often attend. Hope some of this information helps.