Beth is discovering that the road to SL love (of any imaginable description) is replete with technological potholes and communication stumbling-blocks that, unfortunately, RL has left her entirely ill-prepared for. Alas, Beth is seriously considering worship-from-afar to be the only sane option for the foreseeable future. Here is the sorry tale to date:
Much to her amazement, despite the walking anomalies and the tendency to bond intimately with any nearby body of water, Beth somehow managed to coax the object of her affections into spending a little time alone with her. Something that she hoped might be broadly interpreted as a ‘date’ of some sort, should he perchance choose to incline in that direction.
Beth tried to impress him by taking him to the beautiful Sagrada Familia sim in the Hermetic Palaces region. “Come on” she thought, “Barcelona, posey architect, balloon ride – gotta beat a nudist beach into a cocked hat. I can show off my stunning intellect as well as my astonishing good taste. Surely he’ll go for that?” Beth had thought ahead and planned meticulously. She practiced teleporting in. She worked out the straightest and least embarrassing route to the balloon ride. And best of all – she discovered that there was no water in the vicinity - except the sea at the very edges of the island. Beth felt prepared and confident.
Why didn’t she share her plans with her SL friends? Perhaps one of them would have pointed out the glaringly obvious pitfalls that awaited her.
Poor Beth. Why did she imagine that piloting a balloon would be any easier than walking or flying around? Did she even stop to consider it? And what about the lag? This is a sim of the most elaborate cathedral in RL, picked out in miniscule detail. There are more colours, swirls, curlicues and fiddly bits than a Drag Queen Frock-Off in the middle of Mardi Gras. So not only did Beth’s balloon lurch around the middle-distance like a drunk on a trampoline, her pc had nowhere near the speed necessary to rez the sim in time for her to see the oncoming architecture – causing her to crash into spires and take the noses off gargoyles right, left and centre. Beth’s ‘date’ was not looking particularly impressed. In fact he looked decidedly queasy. And he laughed rather a lot. But not in a good way, she feared.
When they eventually landed (Beth spotting the sea rezzing below them seconds before they hit, and executing a heroic but bone-jarring sideways landing with about as much dignity as a skier ploughing into a snow drift) her companion proposed a drink and a nice sit down might be the next order of the day. Thanking the techno gods profusely that her companion was not, at this moment, reaching for a towel and his emergency tp Landmark, Beth readily agreed to anything he might care to suggest.
He took her to a Steampunk Music Night. The party was in full swing when they arrived. Thankful for the mercifully short and straight walk into the building and over to an empty table, Beth sat and determined to make the very best of this Alternative History opportunity. If the mechanical aesthetic of the Age of Steam really had perpetuated for another century, Beth tried to imagine if this is really how she would have been spending her evenings in RL. The venue was small and ‘intimate’ (ie no room to swing a neko). It was crowded and the atmosphere manic. The tightly-packed participants – genteel ladies, gentlemen adventurers, cats, foxes, mercenaries, steelmill owners and engineers – were all dancing wildly and joining in with songs about zombies, train wrecks and Tom Cruise. People were swinging from the chandeliers, burlesque dancing on the bar, and on stage a DJ in a kilt danced like a frenzied Pogue on speed. The patter in local chat was rabid, riddled with in-jokes, baffling and mainly downright incomprehensible. Trying to hide the fact that she was clearly out of her depth, Beth attempted witty banter and wry observation on her companion and tried to calculate a dignified exit route through the tumult for the moment it would be needed.
Just as she was starting to relax, to her horror, Beth’s companion (very politely and with knee-melting grace and charm) asked her to dance. Beth blanched visibly and her bowels turned to water. Steampunk dance balls? Beth had barely got her training wheels wet on the nice, conservative couple’s dances at Bella Vida. How many ways to embarrass herself might lurk in that innocent-looking intan? Beth stumbled out an apology. Her ‘date’ looked a little miffed. Beth babbled something about ‘all the people’ and ‘how hot it was getting in here’, and prayed for an SL-wide crash to bring her salvation. Her gracious companion must have taken this as a hint and suggested taking her to a different sim – outside and in the sunshine. He also mentioned that there was a device there he thought she might enjoy. Beth blinked and gulped but knew he was too much of a gentleman to be suggesting anything untoward. A gadget, perhaps? Beth loves gadgets. A new ride? Beth is having a peculiar love-affair with any and all of the many and varied modes of transportation in SL, so if her date was suggesting a new way to float, zoom or skedaddle around a sim, Beth would be thrilled to bits.
Her gentleman friend poofed off and sent her a tp. ‘Mexico 2’. Beth was intrigued. She took a deep breath and clicked on the teleport. After the whoosh, Beth found herself dappled with sunlight, surrounded by green, and inches away from the broadly smiling face of her erstwhile companion. Her first thought was “Yay! No water!” Then she plummeted 60 ft through the forest canopy and hit the dirt with a thud. She received a concerned and apologetic IM
He “Oh Beth, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise the platform was so small. The tp I sent you must have made you miss the edge. I really am very sorry”
She “Um, no worries. I’m fine. Er, where are you. Exactly?”
He “Stay there. I’ll move right to the middle of the platform and send you another tp. Then you should be able to land…”
But unfortunately, it transpired that there is a gap between the tree and the middle of the platform. Beth’s ‘date’ plummeted 60 ft through the forest canopy and hit the dirt with a thud. Both of them cast about sheepishly and Beth found her mind filling with comforting thoughts of tidying her inventory and deleting old notecards. Surely the evening couldn’t get any worse…
About 10 minutes later - after flying up the wrong tree trunk, getting wedged underneath the platform, overshooting, narrowly missing a ziggurat and various other dismal failures to reach the platform – Beth finally found herself standing next to her companion and a bright green Flying Fox. “Oh yes! This is more like it!” thought Beth. She jumped aboard and plummeted earthwards (but in a far more dignified and interesting manner than previously) However, moments later she had landed. “Hmmm” thought Beth. “It takes me all evening to get here, I think I’m in for a wild ride, and in a few seconds it’s all over. Story of my bloody life, or what…”
The object of Beth’s fondness decided (quite sensibly, in her opinion) that now might be a good time to call it a night. As nothing had gone disastrously wrong and no technological challenge had flummoxed her for several minutes, Beth found herself agreeing that this would be an appropriate high-point to end on. Their closing farewell IMs at least confirmed in Beth’s mind that the two of them were still friends, much to her relief. She decided to continue harbouring deep, unrequited affections for this avatar, but considered it safest to leave it at that. Nursing a bruised heart, a tattered dignity and a badly twisted knee, Beth limped back to the safety of the Botanical Gardens and a night on her own, out of harm’s way. She might not be going on any more ‘dates’ with her paramour. But she might very well be sneaking back to Mexico 2 in the very near future to play on the hang glider…
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