Overcoming Obsession in Relationships in Second Life

Relationships in Second Life are a slippery slope.

First, let me clarify that when I use the word "Relationships", I am referring to any type of relationship. This could be a friend, an acquaintance, a co-worker (in-world), a stranger, a partner or a lover. Or in the case of Second Life, where one person can actually be ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Relationships in SL are vibrant and violent, varied and volatile...and the entire spectrum in between those descriptive V-words. You can meet people that become best friends for life and you can meet people who can become your worst nightmare. Having a relationship (romantic or platonic) with someone in Second Life gets very tricky because it almost always ends up getting intensely personal. You may try and keep it "SL Only" but when you share triumphs and tragedies with the people behind the avatar pixels (daily, in many cases), you learn so much about the other person that you are connecting with because you start out your communications with them on a mind-to-mind level, rather than putting any social or physical variables into play. Many times you tell people more about your day, more about your problems, more about your worries, more about your inner-most thoughts and more about your heartaches than you would even tell your best friend or spouse in Real Life. Based on this information, you can see how obsession in relationships in SL would be quite common. It can even turn into a very serious issue for some people...obsessing over where people are and what people are doing when you're not around. That's where trust comes in. In Second Life, if you don't have trust, you don't have much of a relationship.

Rather than being honest with someone and tell them how you actually feel about them, some people pretend to log off to avoid talking to someone when they are actually still online...and it says right on their profile "online" - this only causes heartaches for the "other person" who really feels very rejected (obviously) when something like this occurs. Back when I was an avid profile-reader (I gave up profile reading a month ago when I first decided to leave SL - I felt it was just making things harder for me personally because I was looking at them obsessively - and my sole reason for making a break from SL was to get healthy - I don't ever want to fall into obsessive or addictive patterns again), I saw profiles with statements like "just tell me if you aren't interested in talking to me, I'm not dumb - I know whether you're online or not". A full measure of honesty from each person in the relationship PLUS a serious willingness to be upfront with people is definitely necessary in SL. People can't gauge your emotions through an avatar. Words you type have NO inflection. If you are trying to get a point across to someone in conversation you need to remember that they can't tell if you're serious or joking. Things you say can be misconstrued, mistyped or misunderstood.

I have been looking into obsession in relationships lately - especially since taking a break from SL - because I felt that there was a direct correlation between the addiction and obsession. Obsession in relationships in RL and SL can be very ugly and painful for everyone involved, and it has a ripple-effect. Essentially making a lot of people experience hurt and pain. If you have a situation where you have been involved in a situation like this, you can understand this clearly. If not, count yourself lucky.

I discovered this incredible web page with information about an Obsessive Love Wheel. The different levels of obsession here don't have to apply to just love interests though, they could apply to friends or working partners too. According to the page (which is chock-full of great information), there are four phases of Obsessive Love. These are: Attraction, Anxious, Obsessive and Destructive. I decided to put one example of each below. Please visit the page for even more information.

Attraction Phase: unrealistic fantasies about a relationship with someone, assigning "magical" qualities to them (this is very easy to do in SL where almost everyone has a magical quality of "perfectness" assigned to them physically by Linden Labs when they first log in, unless they choose to reshape themselves to a different form.)

Anxious Phase: unfounded thoughts of infidelity on the part of a partner and demanding accountability for normal daily activities (this could also apply to people who are builders or business owners and team up with another person in SL.)

Obsessive Phase: physical or electronic monitoring of someones activities (this is easy to achieve in SL - there are entire businesses based on monitoring or spying on others and this can include everything from tracking them as they go from sim to sim to even capturing their words in local chat and saving them somewhere - I know that the latter is a violation of privacy in SL, but that doesn't stop people from doing it anyway.)

Destructive Phase: extreme feelings of self-blame and at times, self-hatred (another example of something that can apply to any type of relationship in SL.)

I also read this fantastic blog post about addictive and obsessive behaviors when related to meeting and establishing relationships with others in MMORPG's. I thought it was particularly intriguing when I read her take on psychology and gaming with regards to Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. We all have emotional needs that we want filled. If those aren't being filled in our every day lives, it just stands to reason that we would search for those needs to be satisfied any way we can. INTERPERSONAL ACCEPTANCE...we instinctively desire to be near those who understand us. It is absolutely human nature to seek out people who give us comfort and who understand why we feel certain things. Again, this is where honesty and trust mean so much. As I mentioned in an earlier post, people pretend to be all sorts of things in SL. You take a risk anytime you loan a piece of you out to someone else in either life, but I would argue that the hurt that can be caused between two individuals who are so close on a mind-to-mind level can be far more damaging psychologically.

My opinion is that when a relationship is obviously obsessive and becomes detrimental to others involved - either those directly or indirectly effected, it should either end completely or be repaired to a point where everyone benefits again, provided they ever did at any point. In cases where it's not possible, you have to take a step back, have faith that things will be okay and move on down the next path in your life. Have faith in your friends who continue to stand behind you and beside you. Have faith in whatever makes you feel positive and strong. Most of all, have faith in YOURSELF.

For some reason, this song has been stuck in my head since I started considering which song to end my blog post with. It's a beautiful song.