Virtual Reality

Some of my non-gamer friend once defined online RPGs as "dating portals with an advanced interface" and sometimes I think he was not so wrong after all. Fantasy world communities do have all the qualities of a real world meeting (/mating) place just without the final possibility of physical contact (unless you take the relationship out of game of course) which tends to make it way more relaxed and the ties much more loose. Committing yourself to someone in real world means a lot of other things to follow but in a game it can be just role-play and therefore no strings attached. Virtual friends can be unplugged when you get tired of them or they don't behave like you want them to; when you feel that you need some company you can just log on and there's always someone to talk to.
It's like in childhood - most of us had imaginary friends back then - when all the world was against us they came to offer a shoulder to cry on. They were always ready for an adventure and never refused their help. And they were only ours, no one else had the right to know them. The only difference is that modern imaginary friends are in fact real people - yes they can pretend to be someone else but we choose them by the qualities we like in them and if the role they act out matches ours we don't care that it's all just a fairy tale or even a big fat lie. But real people have real lives too somewhere and that always has an influence on their virtual lives (or it should have at least not the other way) - so we don't really know where and how they spend the time they are offline. And once we have accepted them as our friends we tend to think they belong to us. Or that they exist because we want them to.
So from one hand a virtual relationship needs much more contribution than a real life one - in real you can just give a call to a friend to say that you care, get together for a drink or just be there with each other doing nothing. Fantasy friends cannot have that - when you have logged off you are gone. And they never know if you will return. But then again they can start consuming more of your time than real people - since you met in that game world you must have at least one thing in common and usually you have more. So it can become a more rewarding relationship than the ones you have in real - sharing same interests and having fun together gets people very close. Besides, when you feel bad you stay out so they hardly ever see your down sides. Because of the anonymity of the web they can be much more open in talking about personal things so the connection that you have can be a lot stronger and make you feel that you have known this person for a long time. And sometimes it's better to keep it that way and not try to bring it out to the real world.
Unfortunately that is something that I cannot handle yet - if I get close to someone in a virtual world I want to meet the real person behind the screen, either to gain a friend or to see that we don't have anything in common. But I have to know.
Speaking of feelings in cyberspace - that's tricky. It's so easy to fall in love with an image, a projection of all the qualities you like in a person. And acting out romance is fun and in a healthy role-play it only adds to the joy of it; just as long as it pleases both sides. Starting to demand commitment and vows of loyalty might get things moving in a wrong direction. Regardless of all it's still a game and putting real things at stake for it is not right I think. We have to draw a line somehwhere and if we can't then let others do it for us and get a reality check as to what is important and where the priorities lie.
I guess I have been lucky, of course I have got my fingers burned a couple of times and made a bad desicion but in general it has been a great time for me so far and I sure hope it goes on like this. I have met amazing people and made some real good friends, connections that have moved outside game and have a life of their own now. Had my share of being a drama queen - even that can be refreshing if you don't do it in real world :)
So I will continue my adventures and hopefully find a lot more to discover...