Boundaries again

Last night was odd.

A lover came in very early.  That in itself was odd.  He was already dressed formally, so I suggested that we meet at Frank's for a dance, while at the same time he asked if I wanted sex.  So we decided to go to Frank's to have sex.  (I'm kidding.)  I asked for five minutes to change and he went ahead.

Not again!

When I arrived at Frank's landing point, I crashed.  Of course.  And when I relogged, I got this IM:

[2012/08/03 23:13:44]  Flirt Sorciere: Excuse me for asking such a strange Q, but have we ever talked before, to the best of your knowledge?  I lost all my chat histories in the most-recent forced-"upgrade" of SL...

Sometimes, I wonder if there really weren't these Olympian gods looking down on humanity and playing tricks with us.

[2012/08/03 23:14:58]  Opal Lei: In fact, we have, and not in a good way.

Then I sent him the first two lines of our first and last conversation.  And I told him the date was Jan 1, 2011.

[2012/08/03 23:15:57]  Flirt Sorciere: Thank you for the information.
[2012/08/03 23:16:03]  Opal Lei: Sure.

Well, at least, he's more polite now.

Maybe he'll buy my book and realize that I actually used him as an example of what not to do.

Rudeness to whom?

It still took me a long time to rez things.  I went up the stairs and realized that Frank's had been renovated since I last went here and I didn't know where to go.  In fact, I was bumping on a wall that I couldn't see.

My date rescued me from the stubbornly immobile wall by teleporting me to where he was, but I still couldn't see his avatar.  Just his yellow dot on the mini-map.  Then his dot moved towards the dance floor and we continued to talk in IM.  Then I crashed again.

When I logged back in, I received an offline from him saying he was waiting to dance with me.  The yellow dot on my mini-map was gone and I asked him where he was.  Then he said, "i was waiting for you for dance and other woman sit in your place."

Apparently, he had summoned the dance balls and was sitting on the blue ball already, then he saw me crash, so he took the opportunity to go AFK while waiting for me to get back.  When he got back to his desk, this woman was already on the pink ball, dancing with him.

And he couldn't tell her that he was waiting for someone, because he thought that it would be rude towards her.  He apologized to me (and I sensed that he was sincere) and he reiterated that he really wanted to dance with me.  I told him that, by the same gesture of avoiding being rude to her, he was being rude to me.

It was at this point, a full fifteen minutes since he teleported me to his position, that he (and she) finally rezzed for me.

I don't mind that he dances with other women; we're not exclusive.  What I minded was that I wasted all that time changing clothes, teleporting to Frank's, fighting the lag, crashing a few times, and for what?  I wasn't even very pissed.  Just very irritated for wasting that time.

So I told him I'd leave them alone and wished him to "have fun."

Less than a minute later, he was inviting me to join him on the dance floor.  He finally told the other woman that his lover arrived and I'm sure *she* got pissed, but she wasn't there when I looked again.

I don't know if she remained at Frank's or if she decided to leave, but I decided he and I had to go elsewhere so she wouldn't be embarrassed publicly.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda

I'm sure there's a lot of "lessons" in just that one incident.

She shouldn't have assumed that he's not with someone, just because he's dancing alone for several minutes.  A quick IM asking, "Are you waiting for a friend or are you looking for a dance partner?" would have been sufficient.  It's not the bargain sale at your local department store.  You don't have to jump on anyone who seems available for fear that someone else will grab him.

He should have been more firm with her.  He could have easily told her, "I'm sorry, I'm not really available.  I was waiting for a friend to relog and rez.  Maybe you and I could dance another time, if you'd accept my friendship."  But, he's not that articulate with the English language either.  Besides, we all come from different cultures and we were all brought up differently, and I know that he comes from a culture that is concerned with politeness and diplomacy.  I also understand that he probably wanted to preserve the possibility that she would dance with him again in the future.  After all, he thought that she was nice too.

And what should *I* have done?  I should have skipped Frank's entirely and just had sex with him.  I would have avoided all that weirdness. ;)  On the other hand, I wouldn't have had anything to blog about, would I?

Who knows if it's good or bad?  ;)