Scylla Rhiadra

You're not a Mean Girl. You don’t need a "gang": you're a force unto yourself.

And spiders. The ones with big squishy looking bodies. I quite like wolf spiders.

I think it has a similar meaning to "flounce," but maybe with more "anger" implied? OED says: The key there may be "petulance." "Real or supposed" also suggests that, like "flounce," the focus is not upon the validity of the reasons for one's exit, but rather upon the way in which one is doing it. (In both cases, but especially "flounce," the implication, though, is that one's reaction is out of proportion to its supposed reason.) I love sashay! It derives from dancing! Who doesn't want to look like one is dancing!?! And it's ostentatious without being ill-tempered! /me sashays prettily away from this slight derail.

I don't "own" definitions, Love. I just know how to use a dictionary.

Yes! This!! I keep mine in my kitchen window, in adorable little pink pots with affirmative saying printed on them, like "Start each day as though it were your first." And I water them regularly with vinegar.(Of course.)

Well, it's not just that "flounce" can, maybe, be synonymous with "rage quit." It's also that it connotes a particular attitude towards that person's actions. It suggests that their reasons are probably trivial, that they are being a bit bratty and very showy, and so forth. So, denotative meaning is one thing: connotation is quite another. If for instance, one said that "the ambassador flounced out of the talks," one would be betraying a particularly dismissive attitude to their reasons for doing so. The vast majority of the time, when you use the term "flounce," it is about yourself. It's self-denigrating, a little ironic, and humourous. Which is also how I apply it to myself. No one is likely to take exception to tongue-in-cheek humour directed at oneself. Using it to refer to the upset responses of those unhappy with the new forum guidelines, on the other hand, either reveals that one doesn't understand the word, or that one is sneering at their response. On one occasion that I recall, I asked someone not to use "flounce" in this context, as it seemed unnecessarily and, I thought at the time, possibly unintentionally insulting to people who were legitimately upset over something important to them. I've since come to think it wasn't so "unintentional" after all. /me flounces out of the thread, picking up her skirts and, nose high in the air, out-flounces even you.

If you're a cat. IF. YOU'RE. A. CAT. (Important clarification.)

I've actually done this a few times recently. They are more nuanced, and they don't necessitate a full-on engagement of the sort that is either redundant, or might lead to a nasty back-and-forth.

This is a really good point.

Fear not, Lindal. The OP is an old forumite, a good friend (here, and in-world), and a lovely person. His bona fides are bona. When he IMed me to let me know he was back, I all but squealed with delight. He's a keeper.

I really like this idea. It won't happen -- and it really only works if everyone does it -- but I'd be into trying it out. Reputation points are like cheese in the maze: they are intended to engineer our behaviour here. I'd love to get rid of them.

Thanks, Cinn -- it's important to recognize that my generalizations are just that, generalizations, and moreover represent my own experience (and, so far as I have been able to discern, the experience of most of the women I know well in SL). (I have a difficult time believing that there is anyone who "doesn't like" you, though.) I don't know that I feel more or less comfortable with my men or women friends. I feel different, perhaps: I'm likely to talk about different things in a way that is at least partially determined by gender, I think. And maybe my guard is less up around women, although that depends, of course, on the person too. I do also like being around men, though. But in a way, they seem to serve a different social function for me than the women I know.

Oh, and just to add. LL tried age verification years ago. It was a disaster.

What this overlooks, Sammy, is the fact that for a great many people a "linkage" between their RL identities and their SL "adult" activities might be not merely disastrous, but in some cases actually dangerous. There are many countries, for instance, in which being gay is actually punishable by prison, or worse. Yes, PIOF already does this to some extent, but you're talking about connecting the dots to an actual RL "official" identity, and not just a bank account. The peril lies not just in the possibility of a hack and a data dump, although that's a real danger. If data does end up either being sold or used for targeted ads, there is the risk of all sorts of stuff people might not want seen on their social media accounts or Google appearing there. It's a bit like the case of an algorithm determining that a woman might be pregnant on the basis of Google searches and purchases -- it's a very "leaky" system.

And that should be the correct assumption -- which is not to say that some women don't initiate because they are sexually interested, especially in regions or parcels which specialize in hook-ups. But I feel that very often your other assumption -- that "women are guarded IRL because it is simply a safer path" -- applies also somewhat to SL, with the difference that "safety" here means something very different than it does IRL. Or maybe she was peckish?

It fires lipstick????

And herein there does lie a real social conundrum. My general sense (and it's entirely possible that others may have different experiences of course) is that these basic rules apply to gendered interactions with strangers in SL: Men are expected to be the ones who initiate contact with women. Women rarely make a "first approach" to men. Women are relatively much more likely to approach other women (for non-romantic or non-sexual reasons). Men almost never (or very rarely) contact other men; one result is apparently that men don't tend to have other men friends, or socialize as much with other men except in the social contexts which tend to include women (such as a group of regulars at a club). Women, on the other hand, are very "homosocial": we tend to have lots of other women friends, and sometimes even travel in packs. (And we're very dangerous when we do. 😉) Now, again, there are going to be exceptions. I have lots of men friends, and in most cases those friendships were established without a view to romance or sex. But, it's also true that in, I think, every instance, it was the man who approached me first. There is of course absolutely no reason why women shouldn't be initiating entirely non-romantic or non-sexual conversations with men. Or, for that matter, be responsible for sexual or romantic first approaches. And yet, I think (anecdotally) that, on the whole, they do not. I'm sure there are many women here who could say that they do, but my sense, at least within my own social milieus, is that these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Generally speaking, I myself do not initiate conversations with men I don't know. Partly that's because I am actually oddly shy in-world (despite being very sociable), and almost never initiate contact with any strangers, male or female. But I also have the sense that there is a tendency to read, correctly or not, a first contact with someone of a different gender identity, as an attempt to "hook up." And I tend to think (rightly or wrongly) that if I approach a man out of the blue, he is going to assume that my interest is romantic or sexual. I'm probably wrong in that assumption? Maybe? And it's also true that a lot depends on context: approaching someone at a gallery opening is different from doing so in a club. But I'd be interested to hear from men, or those who represent as men -- what are your assumptions if a woman you don't know cold IMs you? (I'd also be fascinated to know why men don't seem very often to socialize with other men in SL, given that this is not the case in RL. It's a subject I've broached here before, and I still don't really understand it.)

That's fine, that's fine. I never go there anyway. Do keep an eye out for the Mean Girls here, though. Last week they upended my tray of Salisbury steak and potatoes au gratin on my lap.

Hmm, yes. About that. As Cinn has already mentioned . . . Also, anything not pretty obviously "about" SL will be locked or removed. I know that they used to say they didn't like derails, but these days they are actually enforcing that rule. And while it does make for a more coherent place (I guess?), it also means a much more constrained, less lively, and less fun one. You might want to review the new "rules" pinned to the top, to which Rolig has directed you. Now, about reputation . . . when I came back in 2018, I simply asked people to give me more reputation points (as I had none). And they did! Reputation never matter much anyway, and it matters less now that it's not even visible unless you go to someone's profile to look. But in the OLD days, you could get a sort of bad reputation by having way more posts than actual reputation points. So, if it's a bad reputation you want, you're already there! I suppose you can also get ratioed here, as on Twitter -- lots of quoted posts, but far fewer reputation points? And finally, if you're not good at pitching in grooming the others -- assisting with de-lousing and so on, you know -- well . . . word gets around.

Ags, you know I was under a contractual obligation not to deliver spoilers for this new season of The Forum. Would you have wanted me to spoil the surprise? Honestly, I woke up this morning to a testy email from David Tennant complaining about exactly the same thing. Jeez, people, I'm not Perez Hilton!

Awww. Congrats, @animats. That's lovely. We're all glad you're here. 🙂

Sure, sounds cool, but why would men want them?

Peeve. Maybe. Guy on Twitter who opines that getting working mirrors in SL is a "girl thing," and asks men to weigh in on whether they care. He might be joking? Or not.

Well, the lovely thing really is that I don't need anyone, nor "want" anyone in that capacity. But it's lovely to see people you like finding someone they care about, and who cares about them. I'm always up for that.

This is why I need an SL bf!!! (Ok, no, not really. A male alt is much less demanding.)