Sweet little porcupine

Alt #6 met someone on Sunday. Actually, I'm meeting a lot of people lately. But this one wanted to meet again that he actually scheduled the second meeting, which was last night.

He said he wanted to get to know me. And so he did. Well, he got to know just the things that I thought were important for him to know.

I learned about him too, of course. And I realized that there's no way he could understand me. He might imagine that he does, but he had a fairy tale life and one tragedy. How could he understand a life comprised of a string of tragedies?

To his credit, he showed an honest respect for my experiences and how those shaped me. And he understood why I have my "rules" of engagement. Or disengagement as the case may be.

At some point in the conversation, he called me "a sweet little porcupine." And I remembered something I wrote a long time ago, when I was very new to SL. Then I realized that I've become the sculpture that Starax Statosky had built. The woman in the armor.

But there's more. In another post around the same time, I wrote, "when we open up and realize that it isn't safe, we quickly put on an armor. And, more often than not, the armor has long poisonous spikes."

I suppose the spikes multiplied through those years. And I've morphed into a porcupine.

Not a good thing, I know. And maybe someday I'll work on peeling off that spiked armor, but not likely anytime soon. Like a porcupine, my defensive spikes have become part of me.

On second thought, maybe he really understood me anyway. After all, he chose the perfect metaphor.

Is love ever wasted?

If a relationship ends,
because it wasn't what you thought it would be,
because the magic dissipated too soon,
because the other misrepresented their feelings for you,
because their heart was fickle,
was your love wasted?

Would you want to experience it again anyway?

If you knew that an affair could only be brief,
because society would ostracize you for it,
because being together would be near impossible,
because you'd have to break previous commitments,
because you risk losing your security in the future,
would the love be wasted?

Would you allow yourself to be pulled into its depths anyway?

Is love ever wasted?

Damn oxytocin

I warned him about oxytocin, even before we met irl. He said he wouldn't be affected; he worried more about me. I told him that I had to allow it to do its work. Without it, I wouldn't even have agreed to meet him. And I wanted to experience him.

At first, I thought I could control it. The experience was wonderfully comfortable, not uncontrollably crazy.

But when we went back to our normal lives, my insecurities started coming out again. And the doubts came. Strongly. Suddenly, I felt that familiar fight-or-flight panic.

The RP had stopped. I tried to restart it a few times, but each time, the RP just faded or didn't even start at all. Our conversations suddenly shriveled to a very short chat before he fell asleep.

Had he lost interest? Should we even plan to meet again? Am I being played?

Logically, everything seemed fine. He had work issues to deal with, so I expected he would be very busy. But, when we voiced the other night, I asked him anyway. His answer was immediate and sincere.

He said that, before that weekend, the RP was very exciting. But after that weekend, the RP lost its luster, compared to our real life meeting. My heart melted.

I understood what he meant. I had in fact wondered how the RL meeting would affect my virtual sex life. Two weeks ago, virtual was all I needed, virtual was what I preferred.

Suddenly, I've become hungry for physical touch. Not just anybody's touch, but his touch. His hugs. His cuddles. His caresses.

There was a certain quality in how he held me that I didn't expect from someone so young. It felt like a claiming. He claimed my body, without tentativeness as though I was naturally his, and yet without possessiveness either.

Most men flatter with words and gifts. He flattered me with his fingertips exploring my skin, his arms wrapped tight around me, his body pressed against me, his legs entwined around mine. He flattered me in such a way that I forgot who I am.

*sigh*

It was supposed to be just a booty call.

Damn oxytocin. I lost control.

Enjoy now; define later

He made it sound like it was a common occurrence for everyone else.

"This is my first time to read a book with the author lying next to me.... With my hand between her thighs."

No, sweetie, I don't usually lie in bed with everyone who reads my book while they read it. ;)

I suppose it's just one of the possible things to do when you're spending an intimate weekend with someone you meet for the first time in real life.

The whole weekend felt very comfortable and familiar. As though I've done this with him before. Kinda deja vu, but not as mysterious or dramatic. There's just a certain way about how he touched me and held me, that I couldn't have imagined from our SL interactions.

It wasn't perfect. He had his insecurities (that I know about) and I have mine (that he doesn't know about). It didn't have the emotional intensity of my RL meetings with other lovers. After all, we had been lovers in SL for just two weeks. But it was very nice anyway.

And we each agreed we'd like to do it again. The question is whether it would be worth the expense, the time out of our busy lives, and the long drives (three hours for me and five hours for him, each way).

We continue to be lovers (and RP spies) in SL, but what are we in real life? Close friends? Booty calls? Cuddle buddies? Lovers? Whatever it is, it is definitely only short-term, for many reasons. So, maybe it doesn't really matter what we are.

I'll just enjoy it now and define it later. :)


DISCLAIMER: I don't encourage people to take the risks I do. I knew Agent A's RL identity before he knew mine. There were things he said about himself and things about the way he behaved towards me that made me believe I could trust him. I've met other lovers alone before, and each experience proved to be wonderful. But I have known them for much longer. So, meeting Agent A (someone whom I met inworld only a couple of months ago) was very risky from a personal safety standpoint. Please understand that, just because I do it, it doesn't mean it is wise, even though it turned out fine. Evaluate your risks carefully.

Nine years and more firsts

It's almost anti-climactic. It's about 5pm Pacific Time as I write this, and I just realized Opal is 9 years old today.

August may yet again prove to be significant in changing my SL. However, at the moment, things still feel uncertain.

It didn't help that my external hard drive crashed and it had most of my files. I kept meaning to back up them up online, but life happened and I never found the time. Now, it feels like I lost an arm.

I've had to recompile some data and download others from email and other sources. But the originals, like textures in high resolutions, might be gone. I'm at the mercy of Seagate's Data Recovery department.


The possible good thing is that I lost my to-do list too. And it was particularly long. So, this mishap somehow feels like a fresh start. I may have lost an arm, but I've also lost my shackles. The tasks are still there to be done, but, if I can't remember them, then my priority list is shorter. Somehow, that also helps me focus on what's really important.

Trying to find my bearings and getting organized again after that mishap lost a lot of time that I would have used in more productive things. So I missed the opportunity to release appliers for Yabusaka's mermaid tail at the same time the tail was released. And I didn't have time to recruit more service providers to create listings in AvaHyr.com, which I established in July. Both of these are still high in my priority list, in addition to my real-life job search. So they'll still happen, but in a more relaxed schedule.


And then there's Agent A. He became "Agent A" when he said "psst" and the spy roleplay started. I met him two months ago, and I told him that I preferred he remained my friend for a long time than be a lover for a short time. He agreed. Besides, I was still recovering from Wolfgang. But the RP kept going in that direction; blame it on my nature. :)  So, a week ago, I changed my mind.

This might sound typical for me. But not really ...

Because of one detail.... Next week, I meet him in real life. This would be the first time I'd meet a lover irl while the affair is going on in SL.

And another detail.... Just call me Stella, and I'm getting my groove back.

Learn to be lonely

I don't remember how it started. Maybe it was an ad about the "Phantom of the Opera" being in San Francisco from mid-August to early October. But I'm having this obsession about the Phantom again the past few days. I've seen the movie, but not on stage. (I might have seen it on stage many years ago, but I can't remember for sure.) And I've always loved the music. 

Anyway, I went searching for the album on Amazon Prime, and I found this song at the end. It was supposed to be played when the credits rolled at the end of the movie, but I don't remember it. For some reason (or reasons), it got my attention this time.

First, it didn't fit the rest of the album, which were mostly operatic, whereas this is more modern, more folksy even. I love the guitar plucking. And I love the words. And I'm surprised that Minnie Driver can sing!

Anyway, the song is very tender, very sweet. But not saccharine-sweet. It's not your typical song that encourages false hope and fake happiness. It's about facing reality, about learning to deal with the life you're dealt, about depending on yourself. And about finding genuine satisfaction in that.

"Learn how to love life that is lived alone."

Someone who is too afraid of being alone is easy to take advantage of, easy to manipulate, easy to use and abuse. Or that someone might be the one taking advantage, manipulating, using, and abusing, just to make someone stay with them. And that's how we create unhealthy relationships that invariably end up with heartaches at best and lost lives at worst.

Deep inside, we're all children of the wilderness.... Learn to be lonely.

Unconscious biases in SL

I just watched this. Highly recommended. Howard Ross talks about how our unconscious biases affect our interactions and our world.

This discussion is very important in a very diverse community like Second Life. And I would love to have this conversation extended and applied to virtual communities, especially because our unconscious biases are working on artificial stimuli, like fabricated avatars that differ from our real selves in varying degrees.

Are we perpetuating those biases by the avatars we choose and design? By how we interact with avatars that make us feel uncomfortable either by what they represent or by their quality? Do we judge people by the avatars they choose? In what ways?

I am Filipina in real life. Short, brown-skinned, dark hair, dark eyes, overweight, disproportionate.

I chose Opal to be tall, fair-skinned, redheaded, blue or green or teal eyes (depending on my mood), hourglass-shaped.

Knowing that, how do you perceive me now? (Honesty would be much appreciated.)