Beth did the girlie thing and ransacked her wardrobe for the least transvestite-y outfit she could cobble together for the event. She attempted Steampunk chic – smart jacket, pinstriped skirt and ankle-disguising boots. Crowned by a rather wonderful button-covered topper she had found on a Sixty Linden Weekend deal at Hatpins. The coffee shop she picked, the Beau Belle Cafe in Shadow Vale, was smart, had sea views and did the cafecito she had noted her Canadian liked (good ol’ ‘notes and privacy’). The control-freak in Beth was breathing relatively easily. There were a couple of other people in the café at the same time. Again, pleasant and reasonably conventional types, who included the two newcomers in local chat of a genial and entertaining nature.
So – coffee was drunk, sunsets were approved of, chat wandered around nice, safe and predictable topics: Real Life in the skimpiest of details, the mathematical nightmare that is arranging meetings across timezones, amusing lag-induced misadventures, the state of hot pants in the current technological climate. And, of course, inevitably – the subject of gender raised its ambiguous head. Beth rehashed many of the arguments previously outlined in this series of blog posts, and found no obvious objections from her companion. Perhaps buoyed up by her growing confidence that a matching of minds was going on, perhaps flushed with too much caffeine from the obliging vendor, Beth may have been pushing the boundary a little when she revealed one of her Operator’s RL maxims. As far as Beth’s Operator is concerned, there are only two types of people in the Real World. Bi-sexuals and mono-sexuals. Think about it for a moment – you’ll get there… Her chum was quiet for about a minute. Oh bugger! thought Beth. I’ve blown it. She couldn’t believe her crashing stupidity. After all she’d been through – defeating the Lag Monster, overcoming her disabilities, weathering previous dating disasters and mastering SL social etiquette. And know she’s shot herself in the foot by bringing in gender politics on a first ‘real’ date. Good grief, did she think she was still at University or something? Had she learned nothing in all those (many) intervening years? Doh!
But then, thankfully the conversation picked up again and strayed on to other subjects, particularly coffee (about which her escort knew a terrific and interesting amount - such as Casanova’s secret weapon with ‘the ladies’ being whipped cream. We can only hope he didn’t hurt his back getting the frothing machine over the balcony each night…) Perhaps the hiatus was only down to a bit of lag after all. At one point, however, input from her new friend became somewhat sluggish and protracted again. Ah – thought Beth. I’m either boring the pants off him, or maybe he’s talking with someone else in IM. Indeed – just one of those things an avatar has to get used to in SL. While the pixels say you are the only two people in the room, the voices in your companion’s head may be legion… She should have thought of that one earlier on.
He Sorry if I’m a bit distracted. I’ve been having a chat with someone on my contacts list
She Oh, I understand! I know how it is when people can contact you so easily in SL
He Well, actually, I contacted her
Beth gulped, hopefully inaudibly. Had she been boring him senseless after all?
He I’ve sent her the link to your blog and I’ve been telling her all about you
O…..K….. thought Beth. I certainly don’t mind anyone diverting traffic to my blog and upping my hit rate. No siree. But tiny explosions of doubt triggered in the back of Beth’s mind.
He I think you two would like each other. I’ve been persuading her to come over and meet you
An awful, awful thought occurred to Beth. A certain incident in Beth’s Operator’s past suddenly leap-frogged to the front of her memory. Obviously we won’t go into details here, but there was a sense of unwelcome familiarity about the current situation. Uh oh.
She Um. What was it, exactly, that made you think we might like each and that we should meet up?
(on what I thought was an actual date, just the two of us, might lead to something more than bloody coffee… she didn’t say out loud)
He It was the stuff you were saying about being bi-sexual. She’s not come out and said it straight, but I think C is bisexual too
The ‘date’ imploded with an almighty ‘WHUMPH’. Oh no! thought Beth’s Operator. Not again!!!
As previously stated, we won’t go into details here. But any female reader of this blog with a male partner who just happened to mention their secret fantasies about themselves and two women, particularly if any of those online ‘dating’ sites were involved in any way – well, you probably already know where this is heading. Yup – proving yet again that mistakes made in RL are oft repeated in SL – Beth’s date made the classic and catastrophic error of assuming that if “I just get the two of them together in the same place, well, it’s just BOUND to happen! Yay!” Oh dear, no. Oh no, no, no, no, no no, NO! If anyone has a shred of evidence that this brutally executed seduction has ever once resulted in hot three-way action (outside of a porn movie) then Beth and her Operator would like to know about it. It certainly wasn’t going to work tonight for Beth’s Canadian comrade. And that was before the woman in question even turned up. When she DID turn up (a minute or so later) the evening took the kind of nose-dive a Kamikaze pilot would have been truly proud of. Here’s the whole sorry incident:
The Canadian’s ‘friend’ rezzes into the café. Onto a table. All blonde mane, big boobs, black mini-gown and 6 inch stiletto-heeled cowboy boots. You know the type…
C OK turkey. Here I am!She turns expressively to the other two patrons in the vicinity
C Hello Y! Hello Z!
C Hi Beth
Z Hey C
Y Hiya C :)
C Hi everyone! I’m C from Alabama, USA...
Oh good lord, thinks Beth. Could this person be a bigger clique? Then berates herself for being positively racist
Beth Hi C. I see you like table dancing - neat!
C LOL
C I've come for you Captain Kirk....
Captain Kirk? We’ve already established he doesn’t have a Mountie uniform. It there a Star Trek uniform in his inventory that C has already been privy to? Should Beth be running for the hills right now…?
Y Any woman recognizing Captain Kirk is worth her weight in gold to be honest... ^^
Yikes! Is Beth surrounded by Trekkies? And these people looked so inoffensive before…
C then executes any impressive leap off the table and lands half way between the Canadian’s lap and head. There she levitates, perhaps a little menacingly…
Beth Hmmmm. If this chap asked you to sit on his face - I think you missed!
C LOL
Now things really start to take a bizarre turn. C starts to emanate pink and purple confetti from somewhere about her person. The stuff floats out in a perilously wide radius, covering Beth and Z and thence the entire café.
C Since he didn't have any super sexy girlfriends... I have stepped in...
What??? Hang on, a few short minutes ago Beth was petrified that C had taken up the Canadian’s invitation in order to get Beth into a compromising position. Now, it appears, Beth has fallen foul of a turf war. No ‘super sexy girlfriends’ on hand? ‘Stepping in’? Ouch!
Beth Fair enough
C He needs to be loved
Z Hiya
C He is a sad puppy dog
Z Sorry, I was away for a second... and I came back to… this! :)
Z is absolutely covered in pink hearts, and still the stuff keeps coming…
C There, there baby
Beth Oh, yeah. He was probably fed up with all these guys in here hitting on him
C I've come to you my darling
C He needed a real woman. HAHAHA
Beth pretty well thinks she’s got the picture now. And the pink goo is starting to stuff up her sinuses. Her only compensation is that Y and Z have no idea how C came to be here. As far as they know, she just materialized on the table and leapt on the nearest bloke. But even so – the cracks about the lack of sexy competition and real women have only one obvious target.
Beth OK guys. Nice meeting you. I'll be heading off now :-)
Z Yeah. And I gotta get up. I'm allergic to all this hearts and glitter
Y Take care, Beth :)
And Beth bade them all farewell and teleported off to her Secret Changing Room in the sky. Leaving the Canadian to whatever ravishing the invading US Forces cared to inflict upon him.
When Beth’s Operator next returned to her pc, there were some plaintive messages from Canadia Land. Beth had some thinking to do. Should she cut her loses and give this encounter up as a bad job before it begins? Or should she risk another date with someone who has such terrible judgement? Clearly, the Canadian’s poor abilities around character assessment work in Beth’s favour. And maybe she should be grateful for that fact. But if the first date went this badly – what might she expect on the second? What to do? What to do?
Finally Beth came to a decision. This is Second Life. Why not make use of all the technology, anonymity, and social networking opportunities? So here is a message direct from Beth: “My dear Canadian friend. Yup, it was great while it lasted. But I can’t really see a future for us. So I’m dumping you by blog post. See ya around. Oh, actually not. I’ve removed you from my friendship list and muted you. Bye!”
Phew! What a relief for the terminally diffident. How very Second Life!
(many thanks to Mags and Carmella - two patient and gorgeous models who are heading for the big time!)
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