aail on, sail on, little girl, sail on

I won't say this was fun--it was not--but it was puzzling:

[10:28] Exxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: Hello
[10:29] Emilly Orr: Hello?

Now, anyone not a new reader knows this by now: unless I know the person, just IMing me with "hello" immediately puts me on the defensive. I'm trying to be better about it, but in a text-based environment, all I have to go on is text. In RL, I can see eye position, body language, any small movements, the muscles under the skin controlling faces. On phone calls, if I have nothing but "hello", I will at least have the sound of the voice, any emotional inflections given by that voice, to get a read on what the rest of the conversation might lead to.

In SL? I have the words. And that's not a bad thing, but give me something more to work with than just "hello". It's not that hard.

[10:40] Emilly Orr: Fascinating conversation. Okay, enjoy the rest of your day.

Seriously, I ask you, how was I supposed to respond? One "hello", then he leaves me hanging for ten minutes. Seriously.

In the intervening time, I pulled his profile. Four years old. No FL bio, no FL pic, no picks at all. Most of his groups are sex-based, ranging from extreme bondage to pregnancy to...let's say "interracial dating", again. I dub him boring not due to his groups, but due to the utter lack of other information on his profile. He apparently is the profile equivalent of "hello".

[10:41] Exxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: yeah I would not expect a dimwit like you to take hi as a means of showing courtesy so i label your kind as pathetic

Ooh. So edgy. What is my "kind", pray tell? Do let me know.

And again, what was I supposed to do, carry the conversation? It's not my job to figure out why someone is saying "hello" and nothing else, it's their job to convince me they're worth the attention. If I contact someone first, it's my job to convince them I'm worth their attention. This is basic social interaction.

[10:41] Emilly Orr laughs
[10:41] Emilly Orr: Thank you for the instant judgement.
[10:42] Exxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: anytime [a**wipe]

And yeah, I should have left it there, but I figured I'd at least toss him the courtesy of the polite reply he didn't bother with me:

[10:42] Emilly Orr: But, for your information, "Hello" tells me nothing. Ask a question. Tell me why you're contacting me, since I don't know you. Let me know something beyond just 'hi' or 'hello'.

Because again, it's not hard. "Hi, I wanted to know [X]". "Hi, I want to know if you're into [Y]". Or even "hi ur really pretty"--I get a lot of those. Whatever, just add something to the opening single word.

Obviously, he didn't reply back. Not sure why I was even surprised by that.



So we move on. First, this is a really great white hart. Moves very naturally, it's long enough that the loop seems random and not really that artificial. The problem? When I snapped this picture, he was idly grazing on air, while standing partially on air.

Sure, it's a simple error in the wander cycle, but it did amuse me.



I am being absolutely honest here: this is the creepiest avatar I have seen all year. It's so inventive, though. Perfect mesh doll head on a black stick body. That's just...disturbing.



And she had the prettiest porcelain face, too. And this is very creative, I give full points to living her dream here. It just made my skin crawl.

And finally...



Usually I don't bother to snap logging-out photos. Sometimes there's a good shot in there, but it happens maybe once every fifteen months or so? But this was too weird not to capture.

Standard logout screen: it's whatever I was doing at the time, only desaturated. But this was on a whole other level. I hit exit, and the walls of the cabin disappeared, the other furnishings disappeared, most of the flora outside (but the pine trees) disappeared, and most of me disappeared. But not everything--my stockings and my hair remained. How does this even happen??