Where I have been. Where I am. Where I am going.

I had an urge to blog today. Had to remember my password. Had to find my login. And then I look at my last post and, lo!, it has been five years since I have been here! FIVE years! Where has time gone? So much water under so many bridges.

I stopped posting all those years ago because it was too painful. If you recall, I was once upon a time deeply in love with a man in SL (let's call him Boston). It affected my RL. He had an RL with a wife and kids. So he broke it off with me. And I was broken. Devastated. Funny how rejection from someone many states away could so greatly affect my both my lives, SL and RL. The last time I spoke to him was well over 6 years ago. Since then I have come to understand the wisdom in the way he broke it off (cold turkey) with me. I have also come to question how much this affair was a fantasy (perhaps of my imagining more than his).

Water under a bridge... mostly. I miss him still. But I think he was wise to dump me hard.

Why? Because over the last five years, my RL Beloved has been having an affair with a woman (call her Michigan) several states away. Much as Boston and I did, my RL man sends cute romantic texts to her, tells her he loves her, has become emotionally attached. Just as Boston made it patently clear to me (all through our brief virtual affair) that he was not leaving his wife, so Best Beloved makes it clear to Michigan that he is not leaving me and that they are just flirty friends.

The irony here is that I know all about Michigan, just as Best Beloved knew all about Boston. (Although, I do not think D ever confessed about me to his wife--or if he did I wonder how he explained it? She means nothing? It was just a game?) The two love affairs are both remarkably similar and completely different.

Let's be clear here, my RL man did have a physical RL affair with real, not virtual sex. It was just one weekend in a hotel in Toledo. When he came home he confessed all. I lost my shit and told him he had to end it with her. He did and he didn't. She moves in a group of people with whom we are RL friends. I can't help bumping into her at various functions. She has told me he is her "soul mate." He says she is "just a good friend." But he continues to talk to her and flirt with her. And this last summer things got physical again. Not sex. Just kissy face and patty finger physical. But it hurt. I considered leaving him and he lost his shit. Doesn't want to lose me. We spent time in counseling. I have spent a lot of the last five years being real. 

I probably should be happy Beloved is honest with me. But what it really means is if he can have his fantasy life with her in emoticons in text messages and a series of what if or if only conversations, he is good with that. He has his cake at home, me, and he is eating it too, with her.

Some of my bridges are washing away in the flood....

And this Dear Reader is why I have not been writing. Life is all confusing. Do I still love him? Not sure. Am I lonely. Oh yeah. Because while S is busy emoting with P, he is not talking to me. We move like ghosts through this big house. Living separate lives together.

Stay tuned for how This Girl went back to looking for love in SL while she makes decisions about RL....

Recap...

It has been a while so I thought I ought to log in and catch you up on what this girl has been up to. First a bit of a recap....

My RL life took a turn for the weird this year... and for stress relief I have found myself in SL
more of late. Now here's the thing: I have been role playing in SL for a while. First it was Firefly sims with "D", then Startrek sims with my friend Mandy. And if you've been keeping up you know I began playing in Gor this year.

The whole Gor thing started as an accident. Sort of. my first few weeks in SL I fell in love--they call it the SL effect--had a torrid affair in SL. Three years worth. When he dumped me, I was broken. Then I thought maybe we could be friends, and for a while we were. Sort of. Back just before he told me to go away, he was building in Gor and roleplaying there. I admit my first interest in Gor was hoping to bump into him. Maybe. See if he was there. But he never was. Sadly, I will always mourn the loss of his friendship. I still think of him; I suspect I will for the rest of my life. But life goes on. This summer I decided to try the Gor thing in earnest.

I began my SL career seven years ago as a "courtesan." In Firefly I played a "licensed companion." In Star Trek an Orion Slave Girl (it's not easy being green!). I like flirting and men with intelligence. Men who can hold a conversation. Men with imagination, and a sense of humor. (I also blame D for spoiling me there. He set the bar rather high!)  What being in Gor has taught me is that in my heart of hearts, I am a submissive. I like playing the role of "slave." It also taught me that I am very very picky about "Masters."

I tried being a city slave girl in a couple of Gorean sims. Not so much fun.  Most of the time the men are busy running around raiding or being raided, the free women are hiding in the basements when they are not belittling the slaves, and the slaves keep scrubbing the floors waiting for the fireworks to end so they can go back to pouring wine. No one talks to or flirts with slaves. It is all "come here slut/beast and do X."

In July I took one man's collar. That turned out badly. While collared to that Master I met a Jarl who told me he would claim me someday. I've been chatting with him off and on in IM since (and I like the conversations), but I haven't seen him since day one although he is online every time I log in. How long does a girl wait to be claimed? In the Gor Hub I met another Master who was interesting and we talked about the philosophy of being a slave/sub in RL. But he wants a slave in RL as well as SL, has a bunch of girls who fly across the country to be with him for days at a time in RL. Nice guy, but I am NOT into that.

So now I am between Masters. Hanging out in the Gor Hub. Hoping for... Hmmm... I don't know what I am hoping for....

Song du Jour: Damien Rice: "Delicate"

We might kiss when we are alone
When nobody's watching
We might take it home
We might make out when nobody's there
It's not that we're scared
It's just that it's delicate

So why'd you fill my sorrows
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place you've known
And why'd ya sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you
Why'd you sing with me at all?

We might live like never before
When there's nothing to give
Well how can we ask for more
We might make love in some sacred place
The look on your face is delicate

So why'd you fill my sorrow
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place that you've known
And why'd you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you
Why'd you sing with me at all?

And why'd you fill my sorrows
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place that you've known
Why'd you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you
Why'd you sing with me at all?

A Song for Draven: Citizen Cope "Healing Hands"

...Turn the tape recorder on
He just left Jackie O for Marilyn Monroe
We're all bought and sold
For tobacco, firearms and alcohol
What's a pocket full of gold
Without a woman that you could hold
Can't afford to be on the back burner no more
Now I got a lot of places to go

Well I don't know about your right and wrong
I got a muse from the east to the west
All I know is if I never said it before
I'm going to say it with my last breath....

I will never forget your healing hands my love
I thought my heart had stopped
I swore I had given up
I will never forget your healing hands my love
You gave me daylight you gave me sunlight

I will never forget your healing hands my love
I thought my heart had stopped
I swore I had given up
I will never forget your healing hands my love
You gave me daylight you gave me twilight

Never forget...

Quote of the Day: Bertrand Russell on Caution

“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” ~~Bertrand Russell (English Logician and Philosopher 1872-1970)



Bertrand Russell was not only a man of great intellect, but also a man of great passions and Utopian vision. At seventeen he married his sweetheart Alys Pearsall Smith, despite the objections of his family, but their love did not last. He had passionate and often simultaneous affairs with a number of women, including Lady Ottoline Morrell and the actress Lady Constance Malleson. His most serious lover was Dora Black who traveled with him to Russia and China. When Dora became pregnant Russell divorced Alys and married her. Black was an advocate for women's rights and may have influenced Russell's positions on equity and social justice. She--as did so many of her generation--had realised the extent to which the laws regulating marriage contributed to women's subjugation.

In her view, only parents should be bound by a social contract, and only insofar as their cooperation was required for raising their children. Implicit was her conviction that both men and women were polygamous by nature and should therefore be free, whether married or not, to engage in sexual relationships that were based on mutual love. In this she was as much an early sexual pioneer as in her fight for women's right to information about, and free access to, birth control methods. She regarded these as essential for women to gain control over their own lives, and eventually become fully emancipated.


Black and Russell founded a school in 1927 called Beacon Hill School in which they tried to teach children to leave behind superstitions and irrational views of previous generations. Russell eventually left Black for one of his students after she had two children by one of her lover, Griffin Barry. She went on to write extensively on the right of the individual to be happy.

Russell throughout his life campaigned for human rights, social justice, peace, and nuclear disarmament. His lasting legacy as an advocate for peace is carried on by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

(information on Russell and Black excerpted from Wikipedia)

I hear the fat lady singing...

This has been a week of weird reflections for me. Thinking about the end of things. We are winding down to the end of the year. It is the end of the semester in school. In real life I am dealing with a death in the family.  But--and here is irony for you--it is the end of a love affair in Second Life that has hit me hardest of all.

I have avoided talking about all this in my blog here, because he never liked being the object of public discussion. He used to read my blog everyday. We used to chat everyday, we used to email, call, share our SL and RL lives. Then again, he used to love me. Ah well, things change. He doesn't read my blog any more (Google Analytics shows that to me). And he doesn't talk to me anymore. Not really. I get polite emails from time to time. Those friendly emails can hurt more than when we used to fight just because they are so polite, so cool. Distant, emotionless.

This week I realized (I have had some very long hours in the car thinking about stuff) that I have been spending most of 2009 waiting for "things to get better"--when all that happened was things got worse.

I could just count my blessings. I met him fell hard and fast, and had a glorious, wonderful, romantic nearly two years. Most of 2007 we were like (he used to say) teenagers in love. He was my obsession, and I was his. We couldn't keep our hands off each other.

All of 2008 we built our life together in Second Life. I gave him land in Valis for his rez day. We had an Italian villa he designed for me. He made me a studio to write in on the second floor. Then we bought airships and moved high in the sky. He had his shop on the ground. I was--still am--so very proud of his designs. We talked, laughed, had fun together. Couldn't bear to be apart for more than a day at a time.

Real life had demands on both of us. Real life came first we always said.

I remember once, after a fight, when we both went away angry and both immediately turned back around, he pointed out that we really were not capable of walking away from each other. He said: "I can't leave you. I always come back to you."

Here's a question: do we fall in love with a person? Or in love with the feeling of being in love? Or are they one and the same? What makes love go away? Do we just get tired of each other and the little annoyances become too much? How do you get around that? How do you make love last? Is it even possible?

And how do you let go when you don't want to let go? How do you by the one who left when it is a constant knife in the heart? Is it easier if you end it in anger? Because I can't be angry at him. I just hurt. All the time.

He said "Do you think we are the only star-crossed lovers that ever were? It will get better with time."

He was wrong. We are the only star-crossed lovers I ever was part of, and it isn't getting better.

Poetry on a Daily Basis

Found this poem on Poetry Daily. Something about the imagery, and the metaphors evoked, just touches me. I remember too clearly the feel of "salt-sewn eyes." You probably do, too.

You can find the original poem in the Georgia Review.

Quote du Jour: George Sand

“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”--George Sand

"George Sand" is the pen name of Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, a 19th century feminist French author of over 30 novels and 8 plays. Sand is best known for her unothodox ways. She flaunted the conventions for women of her day by dressing in men's clothing, smoking in public, and embarking on many notorious love affairs, the most notable of which was with the composer Frederick Chopin, while she was living separate from her husband. One of her lovers, the poet Alfred de Musset called her: "The most womanly woman."

Yet again, SL Divorce hits the News

My friend Corwyn sent me this piece from the London Times: Second Life affair leads to real-life divorce for David Pollard, aka Dave Barmy. Now we've all heard the stories of SL romances breaking up RL marriages, Dutch and Tenaj, Rene and Dina, but bear with me here, folks, this one has a new twist. It began in Second Life in the first place!

"David Pollard and Amy Taylor met in an online chat room in 2003 and married after discovering a shared love of the internet game Second Life. . . . The couple met in an internet chat room in May 2003 and within six months Ms. Taylor had moved from London to Mr. Pollard's flat in Newquay, Cornwall. They married at a register office in St Austell in July 2005 and held a virtual wedding for their avatars in Second Life. "

That alone would make you think that the idea of a virtual love affair should not come as a surprise to the wife here, but no.

"Ms. Taylor, 28, filed for divorce on the ground of unreasonable behaviour after her husband admitted falling in love with the virtual female character. She discovered the affair after a rare break from her computer. When she returned from a nap she caught a glimpse of her husband's avatar in a compromising position on a sofa with a female avatar."

So she goes to take a nap and hubby, who fell in love with her on-line, falls for another woman on-line. But wait, there's more. Is this the first time hubby has messed about on wifey in SL?

"Ms Taylor's suspicions were aroused in 2007 and she hired a Second Life private investigator. The virtual sleuth, called Markie MacDonald, caught Dave Barmy in flagrante and he apologised to his online and real world wives."

So as far back as 2007 he had different SL and RL wives? Do we see a pattern beginning to emerge? And what do the unhappy couple have to say about it?

"She said: 'I was so hurt. I just couldn't believe what he'd done. It's cheating as far as I'm concerned, but he didn't see it as a problem and couldn't see why I was so upset. He said I was just making a big fuss and tried to make out it was my fault for not giving him enough attention.' . . . Mr. Pollard, 40, said yesterday that his former wife was more interested in her life online than she was in him. 'If I wanted to spend time with her I had to ask.'"

You know what is really sad about this? Not that they are divorcing. But that they are sad people who both blew it. Yes, BOTH. There were expectations on each side of that relationship that were not being met. One wonders if they ever even communicated their expectations to each other.

Wake up all you lovers, RL and SL, out there. Love is NOT easy. Like anything that is worthwhile, it takes hard work. If you expect your partner (RL or SL) to spend time with you you need to get off you real (or virtual) ass and spend time with them! Make time. Go on dates, dammit. Spend a romantic evening AT LEAST once a week doing something nice for the other person. Don't just wait for them to do stuff for you! Do stuff together.

Find things you have in common. Is he a craftsman in RL or builder in SL? Girl, get him to teach you or at least be there helping him, admiring and critiquing his work! She writes? Dude, read her blog/poetry/stories and offer your advice and support! Look for ways you compliment each other and for pity sake COMPLIMENT each other! If nothing else, SL offers worlds upon worlds to explore together, and guess what . . . SO DOES RL!

You know, the sex may have been what attracted you to each other, but the connections you forge are what keeps your partner coming back for more. If there isn't more there, boys and girls, someone is gonna go looking elsewhere.

Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love (Part 1)

So tell me, gang, how many of you think cybersex is cheating?