Suppose "Real Life" isn't good enough?

mike65

Next week on BBC2 is a programme that is for our times -

Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and......Cyberspace Love

Wed 30 Jan, 9:50 pm - 10:30 pm 40mins


Carolyn is a 37 year-old mother of four in the midst of a passionate affair that is tearing her family apart. She's spending up to 18 hours a day with her lover, and her husband is in despair. But the extraordinary thing about this affair is that Carolyn's lover is man she has never met. Because he's not a human being. He's an avatar (or computer generated figure), who exists only in the virtual world of Second Life. And their relationship exists only in cyberspace.

The population of the virtual world Second Life has grown to over three million in the three years since it was created. It's a world in which you can buy the things you could never afford in real life, and have the body and looks of a movie star for just a few dollars. But as relationships develop in this strange animated world, the risk is that they start to become more real than those in your first life.

In the teeth of fierce opposition from her husband of nine years, Carolyn flies 5000 miles to London to meet Elliot, the creator of the avatar with whom she has fallen in love, in order to see if a relationship formed in cyberspace can work in the real world. And she leaves behind her a family left rubbing their eyes in bewilderment and anguish.

This is a film about those who've become so disillusioned with their real life that they've sidelined it in favour of a virtual life. It's about people who've cheated on their life partners and risked losing everything, for the promise of a life that's so far only been experienced in the pixels of a computer screen and the dream world of their own fantasies.

I've never been tempted proberbly because its not a very realistic looking Second-life but otherwise, who knows. As regards the woman above, could'nt she just get a divorce if her married life is so poor she fell in love with an avatar?

Mike.

stovelid

mike65 wrote: »

As regards the woman above, could'nt she just get a divorce if her married life is so poor she fell in love with an avatar?
.

There are some extremely attractive avatars on Boards, all the same.

metrovelvet

The brighter, perfectionistic, idealistic models are what are casting starker shadows on real life, setting up expectations that are unobtainable. For sure, dreaming is a dangerous activity, and escapism is part of the four Fs of human nature [food, ****ing, fighting and fleeing], but we have taken it to such new levels that reality is getting harder and harder to accept without falling into major depressions.

But even Carolyn is drawn back into reality by going to meet the avatar's creator, hoping for something better. I dont know... sometimes I think hope is an evil, not a blessing.

Archeron

I do believe that when virtual reality is of high enough realism and quality to be essentially indistinguishable from real life, a large portion of the population will disappear from the streets to spend all of their time in what they design as their ideal world. Companies will begin to produce life support systems that will provide nutrients, remove bolidy waste, and stimulate muscle movement so that you can remain in your preferred place for weeks or months on end.

Kind of like the Matrix, except it will be us that begin the whole thing, and one day the machines will just cop on that they are actually controlling us and the real world is empty, thus creating an amusing case of role reversal.

Lucy Lubots anyone?

AngryBadger

The idea of falling in love with an avatar....

Right off the bat it speaks to either serious detachment issues with the person involved, or serious despair over their current relationship.

There's a few things that might make a relationship struck up over the internet more appealing than a "regular" scenario. First off you're not limited to when, and to some extent "where (since it is a virtual situation), you can be perpetuating this relationship. If you're already involved with someone else (as with this person who is married) it's obviously much easier to carry on a virtual affair than a real one (and often without the guilt since it's virtual). And if you take the physical out of a relationship, (which is obviously a default with the internet) then any relationship that's begun is based almost entirely on emotional exchange (which is much easier for a lot of people).

In that case it's possible you could be attracted to someone you meet online, but the reality is that you're attracted to the image of that person you've built up in your own head and in a virtual world. Most people probably don't look like the avatar/persona they present online, since the 'net allows them the chance to express themselves in ways they'd never consider in the real world because the same rules don't apply. You might tell someone to go **** themselves online, I mean what's the worst they can do? Impotently swear at you? By similar reasoning we can see how someone might be willing to express themselves a lot more online than in the real world. In terms of how they physically represent themselves, again what you're going to see (in most cases) is a massive abstraction form that person in reality.

We all know the stereotypes skinny guys picking muscular, powerful avatars. Skinny girls picking buxom, vuluptuous avatars, neither case reflecting the reality.

I think the bottom line is that while it's entirely possible to begin a relationship with someone online, whether or not that relationship will develop fully is reliant on how comfortable that person is with themselves since that dictates how much of an abstraction their internet persona is from their actual real world persona.

Most 'net scenarios facilitate a level of freedom that doesn't exist for most people in most real world situations, which means that what you're seeing online doesn't always reflect the truth.

metrovelvet

AngryBadger wrote: »

I think the bottom line is that while it's entirely possible to begin a relationship with someone online, whether or not that relationship will develop fully is reliant on how comfortable that person is with themselves since that dictates how much of an abstraction their internet persona is from their actual real world persona.

You could argue the same thing happens in the three dimensional world. Wasnt it Lacan who said "being in love is giving something you haven't got to someone who doesn't exist."

AngryBadger wrote: »

Most 'net scenarios facilitate a level of freedom that doesn't exist for most people in most real world situations, which means that what you're seeing online doesn't always reflect the truth.

Truth. I believe that is outre. The only thing you can ever know of anyone is what they decide to present to you, on line or not.

But online allows a certain amount of control that real life does not, you dont have to risk exposure, vulnerability, etc.

Latchy

Quote Metrovelvet-Truth. I believe that is outre. The only thing you can ever know of anyone is what they decide to present to you, on line or not.

So true .................Intresting topic .

But online allows a certain amount of control that real life does not, you dont have to risk exposure, vulnerability, etc.

Yes ,we can only take what's possible and give what we wish in return .Rather that than live in a cocoon of unreality online .

AngryBadger

metrovelvet wrote: »

You could argue the same thing happens in the three dimensional world...The only thing you can ever know of anyone is what they decide to present to you, on line or not...But online allows a certain amount of control that real life does not, you dont have to risk exposure, vulnerability, etc.

I agree that in the real world it takes a long time to fully know a person. However, and this is obvisouly just drawn from my own experience, I think it's generally more difficult for someone to mask severe character traits in person than it is over the 'net.

There are a lot of communicaiton rules whcih we only apply in face-toface communication which a lot of people don't apply when communicating online. There are also a lot of things you can see in a persons body language, their carraige and so on, these kidns of things don't exist online.

An anecdotal example, and before i proceed i think it's relevant that I've made a lot of friends (both male and female) that I met both onlineand offline. If someone wants to present a physical image of themselves which is not true to what they actually look like all they have to do is show you a picture which showcases, or plays down the features they desire. In extreme cases anyone with basic photoshop knowledge can tinker with their own photos in any way they desire. So this is obviously much easier over the internet.

Now in contrast, when you're communicating face-to-face, while it is possible to dress a certain way, and do yourself up to showcase whatever you want, but it won't be as effective when you're putting in some proper face-time.

Still, I guess in many ways the argument is somewhat moot. Some people are more trusting than others, some people are better judges of characters, and some people are just willing to accept more. Ultimately whether or not you want to take what some is presenting to you at face value is a subjective judgement each individual has to make for themselves.

Latchy

If one goes down the road of altering ones perception of how others might view you in the physical and intelectual sense then it can only lead to nowere in the end . If it's just for fun then theirs no harm done either way but People will always have good reasons for not opening up to others on the web and rightly so .To much information about oneself can somtimes be off putting .Everybody should keep a little bit (or in some cases a lot ) of mystery about themselves.

metrovelvet

AngryBadger wrote: »

I agree that in the real world it takes a long time to fully know a person. However, and this is obvisouly just drawn from my own experience, I think it's generally more difficult for someone to mask severe character traits in person than it is over the 'net.

There are a lot of communicaiton rules whcih we only apply in face-toface communication which a lot of people don't apply when communicating online. There are also a lot of things you can see in a persons body language, their carraige and so on, these kidns of things don't exist online.

.

I would agree. Bodies dont lie. It has it's "tells" like a blush, racing heart, or dilated pupil. The mask gets dropped.

Sleepy

Back in my early days on-line I met a girl over Yahoo Chat (which'll tell you how long ago this was) who went to the same university as me but was at home for the summer. We spent half the summer chatting on-line. When we met up we got on quite well but there was absolutely zero chemistry between us. We discussed it at a later time and realised that we'd both thought we'd hook up because we felt there was a 'spark' there on-line that really didn't translate to the real world...

milod

Leaving aside the debate around the validity of virtual experience and the profound differences between real and virtual life - it must be a heart-rending situation for the family involved.

One part of me thinks that the husband has found out, in a very unpleasant way, that he's better off without the sort of partner that can resort to such stupidity.

Another part of me thinks that this is addictive behaviour brought on by some pre-existing reason like an unhappy marriage, lack of career or life fulfillment etc.

In either case though, my inner cynic (not that inner actually) can feel nothing but contempt for someone that spends 18 hours a day in front of a PC living an imaginary existence. It's ironic really that it requires a real lack of imagination to see no other alternative...