Can you handle the truth?

Everyone has a flaw. Some trait that they detest in themselves. I have at least thirty, but my worst one is jealousy. I'm the first to admit to being a slave to the green eyed monster. Anyone speaks to my wife and a lil' radar pops out of my head and whirls around frantically beeping out the psycho tune, and I'm not the only one.

Whilst fairly popular in RL, detective agencies are to be found in SL. They offer to catch your cheating spouse, check up on employees and get the lowdown on what your friends are saying about you behind your back. I thought for my usual piss taking post that I should get one to track Tie for a few days just to see what they did. But then I thought about it.

Second Life is an online world (duh). Lies are as easily typed as truths with no facial expression to give the game away. Your favourite fashionista might spend her evenings, bent over a pool table, bound and gagged, with a ponytail butt plug protruding from her arse. The female friend who's fashion sense and shape you envy might be a 35 year old bloke from Woking. Called Derek. Oh and your boyfriend? He's a closet RL furry with three eyes. Okay, okay, I ran away with that. But you get the gist. Nothing in SL is exactly as it seems, and it's the same in relationships.

So you've partnered, exchanged RL pics, spoken on the phone and spent the entire evening attempting to outdo each other with lavish declarations of adoration whilst snuggling under the straylight tree. But you still don't know that person. Having an alt is practically a necessity these days, and there's a bucket load of people out there with more than one alt. Even if you get to the situation where you have account details, email log in, messenger passwords.. Hell, you can have their whole computer to poke around in and you'll STILL have odd moments of doubt, believe me.

So what's my point? Ummmm... Oh yeah. Like the X-files, the truth is out there. But unless you’re hardcore you're unlikely to find it, and why the fuck should you? Enjoy people for the time you spend together, rather than get worked up about what they didn't tell you. If they took the time to tell you then it was probably a well mulled over decision and you should be honoured to have been told. Rather than dwell on the time when you didn’t know.

As for partners, well it’s the same as RL relationships. You don’t know how long it’ll last, and how it’ll turn out. Generally speaking even the most intense and loving relationships have a shelf life and when that time is up you can expect an explosion of mould and rotting waste. So just chill out, enjoy the moment. And if you can’t then you can always go here.