The reality behind VR

I don't know if the O.P. was sad they broke up; or broke them up or whether it was mutual: but as soon as you develop feelings for someone, even online, you can't help but convey some of those feelings.

And then if you say "you're virtual, you may not be real" or "you aren't real" you may be protecting yourself but also you may be hurting someone. Online relationships can be amazingly exciting but also, in a way, people are more vulnerable online and you can't save a situation by being there in person. So people can be sensitive to the slightest imaginary dismissive gesture.

I would also say that if anonymity is vital to one of the people and the opposite is true for the other participant, then the relationship should be broken off unless you really are only playing a game.

Ultimately it's always a game. When one can't even understand oneself, expecting to know another with all the information in the world still seems hopeless.

At some point, there has to be an acceptable level of risk. Guess that's just different for different people.

I've done it and enjoyed it very much. Not now though: too busy being in love with my wife.

#27 Couldn't agree with you more. And the irony behind this whole situation is that we did, in fact, meet in a game. Not a traditional video game like Call of Duty or Fortnite, but more along the lines of Everquest (if you remember way back when). The platform we met in allows for real time communication in a VR world that's known to embellish on fantasy and role-playing scenarios. It was the combination of hours of voice conversations that we had which made me feel a real bond with her. We talked about so much more beyond just sex; we talked about our personal lives, our careers, childhood memories, college adventures, all these real things that couldn't have been made up on the fly - and after talking so much about it, I felt fantasy slip away and this idea of reality becoming the focus. She was a real person behind the avatar in the game. I guess when we crossed that boundary I just couldn't go back to a pretending our relationship was all based on imagination.

Perfect analysis Tom. Yes it was a very hard lesson learned!

Yes, in fact you're quoting me verbatim. Thanks. I have dallied with this kind of distraction. In its way just as exciting as the real thing and indeed it can jump the boundaries and become a real life thing if you meet. Actually magical. I wouldn't do it in future. Not fair on the other person.

I guess the real takeaway here is to stay in reality as much as possible. Getting lost in fantasy land is hard to get out of and it gets even worse when your emotions take over. Reality is sobering but this is where you need to be. I should say where "I" need to be, not everyone. Because some people, like this woman, just can. I should write a book.

Wow, the original post got a lot longer since the last time I read it, lol. One thing that really struck me this time was your observation that good, honest people are at a major disadvantage here. It seems to me that the people who have the most fun on the platform (and who are ironically among the most popular) are the ones who create multiple accounts just so they can post abusive messages in the chats until they get banned, and then do the same thing again later. I think it's because of a general culture of repression that we live in that people find it such that the things they really want to say, that everyone really wants to say sometimes, are "against the rules", and the people who are willing to break those rules, act in bad faith, and lie become the short-term winners in the competitive struggle for happiness and recognition that happens in these virtual communities.

@shadowtanuki thanks for revisiting this. My original post had to be revised for several reasons - mainly for my own well being.

To your point about the problem with users using multiple accounts - that is one of the major problems I still have about this whole situation regarding trust.

She told me once that she did in fact own another account, but she claimed that she lost her password to it and wound up creating a new account with a new username a few years later (the new one is the one I met her with). Point is, just like here at chess.com where you can tell the age of user's account, on there (the platform where I met her on) there is also information about if a user's default payment method is on file or not (every user's profile shows "yes" or "no" to a section showing whether or not there's a payment method on file). This caused a knot in my stomach when I pondered her authenticity because while her profile showed "no" to this, I never understood how she was able to afford her own elaborate multi-level 1 bedroom waterfront condo in the game (her place was a rental and had a recurring cost to it). I asked her about it once in conversation during a private rendezvous I was having with her, but I never pressed her on it in fear that it would ruin things during our encounter. She said it was her friend's and her friend let her borrow it... Anyway. It still stings when I think about this. But again this goes back to me discussing how trust can never be established in places like this - no matter how deep the connection was getting.

I read an interesting book recently, actually a couple of books talking about the same thing (this is only marginally related to what you're talking about, but it sparked a connection). The books are called Post-capitalism by Paul Mason, and Post-capitalist Desire by Mark Fisher. They are saying that for capitalism to survive, there has to be new markets created for activities that used to to considered not primarily economic, like dating and having just basic human interactions. Basically, capitalists are at pains to monetize and commoditize every kind of interaction, everything that can mediate a relationship between humans, so it's getting to the point where you have to pay to be in a relationship in these virtually mediated environments. Kind of off subject, I know, but I see it happening where it's like the market is making all these incursions into everyone's private life. And capitalism requires that all these new categories of economic activity open up, or the profits just won't be there anymore, or something like that. That idea was mostly from the Paul Mason book.

I see the connection. Thanks for the reference too. I just have a real problem with companies having to collect payments on services that involve creating an addiction and getting into someone's most intricate desires. Especially when it involves a younger, more inexperienced person who should be able to experience a life event the right way instead of fast-tracking it through the aid of technology. It's unethical and it creates the wrong expectations about how to behave in reality.

You know, Neo didn't swallow the red pill just because Morpheus and Trinity thought he was the one. Neo wanted to know the truth about reality because he sensed something wasn't right. A similar situation happened with me. When I was plugged into this game, I felt like Neo's character in the movie because I had immersed myself into the system's governing rules, its capabilities, and the adventures that all the different sims I visited were allowing me to do. It's when I met "her" and when things began to feel real with her that things went completely sideways. I felt trapped in there. That's when I took the red pill and wanted to get the hell out. I tried to take her with me before I did, but she didn't want that to happen. She told me she wouldn't be good for me in reality. I challenged her on that a lot before I left, but that's when I realized I was really living in a dream world. So I left her there and that's where she remains. I know she's still in there, somewhere, and no, I have no desire to go back in and hunt her down again. That is something I will never do.

All I remember from reading last time was a sexual roleplay you had with this woman in a VR chat.

This was an interesting piece of work to read, and is one the only things that I could've read all the way through without stopping. I think your points are for the most part true, and that people want to lie to live a life they don't have, per sei.

As for the online relationships, I haven't had such an experience, given that I don't have VR. I don't find online to be at all the same as VR, given that none of us can speak voice to voice. But that further adds to the anonymity of the accounts made here, I guess. Thanks for the post and good read, my friend!

Thanks @BasixWhiteBoy - and just so you and anyone who reads this knows - when I refer to "VR" it doesn't necessarily mean owning a VR headset, like Oculus. In the platform I joined a headset wasn't required. The software you download for the game provided a voice and text console for you to use regardless if you were on a Mac or Windows system (think of Everquest back in 2003-2004, it had a very similar experience but much more interactive and life-like). In this VR community I'm referring to, anyone could download the client and install the software for free. All anyone needs is a working email account and the minimum RAM/CPU specs, plus a good GPU to render the high resolution graphics the game uses. Your built-in system mic is enough to talk/voice on the platform. So easy to install and so easy to get hooked it's scary.

And I'm glad my post kept your interest - nothing I wrote was exaggerated either.

I already have too much disillusionment with the current level of reality I am suffering to want to add another layer onto it. The real world as I understand it is fake enough for me to be discouraged from trying to find meaning in anything more virtual than this.

True, having a bad experience in VR will definitely complicate your own reality. That was the point of my post. There is a flip side to all this which I never brought up (because I thought it was understood). It's why places like this exist to begin with. Everyone needs to escape reality now and again and these days I'm not looking for places like that to escape to anymore. Your point is very well taken though!

I don't believe social media sites are used primarily to escape reality. They're used more because people find it fun to chat and interact with others online and meet new people. Maybe some people use it to escape their own reality, but I don't think most users do so.