Day 161 – On singleness & viewers

I really wasn’t into doing a post today. I thought I’d just cheat and grab a photo from a year ago. Does anyone else do that? Go back to your old posts and see what you were doing a year ago? Then it hit me. It’s been a little over a year since a relationship that was really important to me ended.

At the time it ended, I’d basically been on my own in SL for half a year anyway. Oh, I don’t blame him for that. Not…really. :-p It was my decision to wait around for him. I have to admit, the time alone was good for me, as much as I hated it at the time.

I didn’t really think that I’d still be SL single after a year, to be honest. LOL Not that I haven’t had guys in my life. I’ve had 2 SL boyfriends and a few dates. It’s been over 6 months since the last actual date [meaning, it wasn’t one of my guy friends taking pity on me and inviting me out]. But it’s ok, you know?

I guess before someone makes the comment – Yes, I am still with someone in RL. But he’s quite aware of my SL and my relationships there. 🙂

I don’t know…I get lonely, as I guess everyone in SL does from time to time. I have great friends. I love them and would not trade them for anything in the world. But there’s something about having that one person who looks for your name first when they log in, or who gets excited to see your name pop up when you log in. That one person that can just hold you on the couch while you both work on different things, or who is your last snuggle before one of you goes to bed.

But, I guess it’ll happen when it’s right.

Anyway, I decided to try out Boy Lane’s Rainbow Viewer today. I want a viewer that smashes 2.0 and Emerald features together, in the old set up. The first time I tried Rainbow, the graphics were not good on my computer. Not good at all. But this time, they were good, loaded up well, and things were fairly fast. The first time. Now…I don’t know. I’m getting weird stuff with pictures and anti-aliasing isn’t working like it does with 2.0. And I’m getting that water glitch in both 2.0 and Rainbow, but not in Emerald. When I don’t take pics, it’s great. LOL So I don’t know. And remember, this is all just on my computer. Your mileage may vary.

When I took this picture with Rainbow, I got strange lights all over my face. Some of them didn’t come out well, but I thought this one was interesting. So, my pic of the day. 🙂

So happy :)

I haven’t been doing very well on my blogging every day thing, huh? LOL! But I have been trying! I’ve just been busily hanging out with my new guy and I’ve just been having a lot of fun. 🙂

After all, who else would let me build a very preppy colored house around them while they cook dinner?

Or make prehistoric porn before my very eyes??

Even though I love my house and will keep it up, we’re moving into another fabulous house that I picked up from Xstreet a few weeks ago. 🙂

[It’s been gray in my RL lately, so I made the sky match in SL.]

I love this house and have SO wanted to use it, but I didn’t really have a use for it, and any skyboxes I have, I usually stick to the lower prim one room kind to decorate. But now we can use this because it’s home. 🙂 Well…home with no furniture. LOL

How we’ll decorate, I have no idea.

I guess I should get back up on the posestand. I’ve got blog pics to take. As much as I love my new wacom, it’s a lot slower for me to use it rather than use the mouse. But the effect is better on my face, so I guess I should just suck it up and learn how to use it more efficiently. One day! 🙂

I really can’t sleep

I can’t sleep. 😦 It’s been one of those nights. It’s not a secret that I’ve been dating someone the past few months. He is my best guy friend, someone that manages to compliment me and make me believe what he says is true, one of the few people who makes me talk even when I’d retreat and be quiet. But tonight we decided to end things just because what we want in SL isn’t meshing together. I have a very specific idea as to what I want, and he never lied and said he’d be the one to fill it. It was…heartbreaking, to say the least. But I think, and he agrees, that it’s for the best in the long run. And we still keep our friendship, which is so much more important to me. ❤

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I really need new headers for this blog and for Ch’Know Style. Add that to my To Do list.

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Speaking of my review blog, I’m starting to get itchy about it. I can’t seem to keep up with some other bloggers because they IM designers IMMEDIATELY on release days [or before] to ask for review copies. That just…I don’t know, it seems so unclassy to me. I can’t imagine going to my favorite designers and asking for free stuff to blog. So by the time I see that there are new things, usually a dozen bloggers have thrown it out there because they smooze and ask for things. Is that really how it’s done? I have either bought what I blogged or it was given to me by designers who enjoy my writing or like me as a person. I don’t have it in me to pretend to be someone’s friend just to get free stuff and it’s really starting to make me sick to see other bloggers who do it. I mean, if they ARE your friend, genuinely your friend, that’s ok, and goodness knows in the subset of SL I am involved with, people are either bloggers or designers. But I see a lottttt of fake friendships based on what one person can get out of another lately. Is getting the very latest style that important? Maybe it is. And hey, if that’s how you do it, do your thing. Your $L balance and wardrobe are probably much better than mine.

But I know there’s the reverse side. I’ve seen a lot of designers say that they don’t want to bother bloggers and would prefer to be asked for review copies. And that’s nice, too.

I’ll just put it out there: If you’re a designer and you want me to blog your stuff, just throw it at me. If I like it, I’ll blog it. If I don’t, I won’t OR if you really want, I will and I’ll say what I think should be improved. Or you can let me tell in private and then yell at me for not liking your stuff. :-p I blog pretty much everything.

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I guess I should try to get some sleep. I’ve been sitting here the past 2 hours watching the finale of Dawson’s Creek and crying when Jen dies.

Oh, you didn’t know she died?

Oops.

Endings, Beginnings…

I’ve had a lot of IMs over the past few months asking me basically the same thing. “What ever happened to your SL partner?” Most of you know that Brody, or Levi as he was in the beginning, had to take some time away from SL for RL reasons. I made the decision to wait for him. This was all me and it’s not a decision that I regret. We had even put a time limit on how long this waiting period would be – 6 months. Quite a long time in the SL world, isn’t it? But I felt that it was satisfactory and throughout that time we remained friends, talking every few days at the very least, and attempting to see each other in SL when we could, although it was not always easy.

Over the past couple of weeks, after the “deadline” date actually, I started fighting with myself in my own head on if this should continue. He is, of course, a wonderful person. Anyone would be lucky to have him. But as his responsibilities take him further away from SL, I started to grow lonely. Not lonely in the sense that I was alone, since my amazing friends have been there holding my hand every step of the way, but lonely.

Late last night we decided to go ahead and end things. Not with anger, there was no fighting at all. It was just time, I suppose. I cried, of course, because I always cry. We’ve talked and really, there is no resentment or anything like that. I have no doubts that we will remain friends…mostly because I won’t let him not be my friend. He is wonderful, just as wonderful as anyone I could have ever asked for. He has been one of my dearest friends for over a year, and I feel blessed to have him in my life.

So where does that leave me? I couldn’t tell you. Getting into another SL relationship is probably not going to happen for a while, although I’m sure I’ll end up dating again at some point. The skyworld is gone, so I’ve spent time today setting up a new sky home. I’ve answered IMs, I’ve chatted with friends, I’ve even rented out one of the remaining beach cottages. SLife goes on, and it is a good one. But now RLife me is demanding lunch.

Sisterhood

Sometimes I think Levi knows me better than I know myself. He logged off early tonight saying that girl time was needed. I pouted [mostly because he left before I could tell him to stay since I was off in another room not having fun with my dinner], but then Cen and I got together and he was totally right. I needed girl time. And I guess she did too. We love our men dearly, passionately, deeply. We love spending as much time with them as we can, and it’s almost never enough. But we need “our” time as well, and I think we forget that because we IM frequently. It’s funny how IMs and other forms of communication are not *quite* the same thing as hanging out face to face in SL. I’m sure all of you experience that too with people that you care about. Although Levi and I talk quite a bit during the average day, I always miss him until we’re together in SL. I didn’t realize I was feeling that way with Cen as well.

There’s a quote I’ve always liked by Toni Morrison that says, “A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double.” That’s the way I feel with Cen. We were kind of joking around tonight and she said that we have no need try to be exactly like each other. It’s very true. She and I share many similarities, and people may have noticed that we often type the same thing at the same time, but our differences are what keep us together. It’s that whole yin & yang thing. 🙂

Anyway, enough mushiness. LOL We had a great time tonight shopping [we both bought some cute pajamas at Nyte n Day!], hunting for poop at LAP, and just catching up. We managed to solve the problems of the world [well, our world] while sitting on a swing at Earthstones for over an hour. Of course I snapped quick pics of us.

At LAP. There was poop behind the stump. It was old, it didn’t smell.

And on the swing at Earthstones. Yeah, she’s going for my kidney.

So thank you, sis, for a fun time tonight. 🙂 And thank you, baby, for telling me what I needed. 🙂 I love you both so much!

Party info & our anniversary!

Tonight at 8pm SLT is our Country Night at the pit! I set up a little farm area up in the air. The main reason is because we generally have less lag up there, but also I wanted to decorate in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to down on the ground. It’s simple, but I like it. 🙂 I’ll have the SLurl for you guys later this afternoon, but of course we’ll have the LM giver at the pit like we do when we’re in the party ball. Even if you don’t like country music, come hang out anyway! You can listen to your own tunes, or maybe you’ll let me change your mind about country. 🙂 I promise you it’s not all about c-boys dippin’, spittin’, and cryin’ about losin’ mama and goin’ to jail for killin’ their cheatin’ wives. :-p

The Ch’Know group is currently not accepting any more group members, at least for the next few weeks, unless you and I have been friends for a while, or someone else in the group requests it. The decision isn’t just for me, it’s for the others as well.

I’m supposed to be heading out of town within the next week. Not a pleasure trip by any means, but I’m planning on at least trying to enjoy myself. If I’m lucky, there will be some time for swimming and sunning myself. But, if you pay attention to the pit parties schedule on the side there, it means I’ve moved Disco to the 30th, since there’s a slight chance I may not be here for the next party. If I am, then it’s as easy as pulling my Liquid Rage playlists out for Rockin’ Leather. If I’m not, of course there are many great rock stations out there. Or if there are any DJs out there … 🙂

Here’s today’s super good news. 🙂 Today is Levi’s and my 3 month anniversary!!! I fall for him a little more every day. Not only did I find someone who enjoys my crazy blogging, my shopping sprees, and my silly little builds, but he encourages me and supports me in everything that I do. Plus he lets me chatter on and on even when I have nothing important to say. 🙂 Just thinking about him is enough to make me smile. When I hear his voice, I melt. Thank you, baby, for making both my lives so much better just by being who you are. ❤

People Meeting People

I’ve been seeing and talking to women in SL who are looking for men. No, not the kind of looking that means they are desperate and they have a burning need to get partnered, or even looking for random SLexual hook-ups. They want men to hang out with, to get to know, and to maybe start dating. The women I know are bright, funny, beautiful people, and a lot of them are talented and are perfectly capable of being independent in SL. But as most of us know, sharing SL with someone else is such a good thing. It really brings another level to SL that you weren’t even quite aware was missing before.

So where do these women go to meet men? Where is the island of smart, humorous, and at least slightly good looking men? [You don’t have to be all the way good looking. Trust me, these ladies can shine you up.]

And if they’re looking, doesn’t it stand to reason that there are men out there looking for them?

During the first part of Cen’s experiment, we got confirmation on something that we already kind of knew. A lot of men in SL are more likely to talk and hit on a girl if she looks bad. Or maybe bad isn’t quite the word. But the tall women with the exceedingly huge chests and rear ends with bad clothing choices and body oil seem to get all the guys IMing them. Granted, the IMs are probably not that good. Let’s face it, if someone wanders into a club with her butt hanging out of her Business In A Box shorts, a guy looking to hook-up will definitely IM her to give her box some business. A woman who is well dressed, with a good skin, nice hair, and who is proportionate to her height flies right under the radar. Maybe the guys are intimdated, or maybe these women just look like someone who won’t hop on a poseball with them right away.

But these aren’t the only type of men in SL. I know that they’re not.

I spent the first few months of my SL single, and very rarely getting hit on. Sad but true. It’s not that I didn’t have guy friends. I did and still do, but very rarely was I their type. Nothing against you guys, I promise, since most of you weren’t my type either and that’s why we could be friends. 🙂 Around March, I started dating a little bit. I will admit that I am extremely picky about most things. In fact, I think I even had a list at some point of what it would take for a guy to actually get me. One night I was out with another guy, someone that I was dating kind of but wasn’t really serious about at all, and we were at Sine Wave just checking out dances. Then out of the blue I get this IM from a guy saying that my profile was funny. Who knew that one movie quote would have led to this utterly amazing relationship that I have now with the most wonderful man in SL? And all this from just walking around Sine Wave.

The funny thing is, the women I know who are in SL relationships all met their men in similar fashions. They weren’t at clubs or the “traditional” meeting places. They were walking around a store, or exploring a sim, or helping new people out. None of them were looking for anything. It found them.

So here’s the question – um, questionS: If you are in a relationship in SL, where did you meet? Do you think if you’d met the same person in a different location in SL that you’d have gotten together? If you’re a woman, do you regularly get hit on when you’re in world? If you’re a man, what makes you decide to talk to a woman? If you find out that the person you’re talking to has skills that you may not, does it intimdate you? Do you think being bloggers has affected your relationships? If you are with a blogger, does it change how you are with them?

Discuss. 🙂

Edit: Although I say men & women here, naturally if you are interested in the same sex, please answer the questions as well because it doesn’t just apply to straight relationships and dating. 🙂