It’s rare for me to start a conversation with anyone, and when I do, I get straight to the point. I don’t grasp the concept of small talk; the idea of small talk strikes me as ridiculous. Even as a teenager, I was never the kind of girl who would call my friends on the telephone just to chat or say hi. The same is true in Second Life. Don’t take it the wrong way, but I’m just not the kind of person who will IM my friends out of the blue.
The reason I’m writing this blog entry is because I’m afraid many of my friends–new and old–don’t understand, and take it as a bad sign if I don’t randomly contact them once in a while. I assure you, we’re still friends though I am silent. Maybe someone will suggest to me that I just ought to try making small talk, touching base with friends once in a while for no other reason than to say “hi, what’s up? How are you?” Believe me, I could. There’s nothing physically preventing me from doing this. But it would be entirely fake and forced. Even though Second Life is a virtual world, I am a real person and behave the same as I would in the real world.
Then there’s the issue of Builder’s Guilt. Other content creators can identify with this, I’m sure! After engaging in social activities for an amount of time, the Guilt builds up. “I’ve got work to do,” a little voice says. Builder’s Guilt is especially intense for me, as I work a full-time job in the real world, and have about four hours to spend on Second Life on a weekday. My To-Do List always grows longer, never shorter, so you can imagine how the voice in my head goes crazy if I’ve been locked in a conversation for an hour. (It is remarkably hard to build AND chat simultaneously. If I’m chatting, I’m NOT building.)
Am I always building or working? …Yes, actually. If I’m not, I should be. Actually, part of the reason I don’t initiate conversations with people through IMs is because I don’t know if they are building, spending romantic time with someone, or just about to log out. In my real life, I was afraid to start conversations because I was never sure if someone might be having a bad day and not want to talk, or that I would be intruding upon them in some other way. Also I think the “speak when spoken to” concept was really drilled into my head as a child, and it’s hard for me to break.
Does this mean you should not IM me at all? By no means! Please keep in mind that I may be working on this or that, but if you want to talk, I am available, especially if you really need to talk about something in particular.
