About Friendship in Second Life

By Fresh Catteneo

The blue box in the top right-hand corner of the screen is a friendship offer that I received this morning. It made me feel good and happy. This person probably finds me either attractive or interesting (or both). Who doesn't like to be offered friendship ? I did not respond immediately by pushing the "Accept" or "Decline" buttons. First of all, who is this person ? Why is he/she offering friendship ? What is he/she looking for? What are their interests ?. This can be checked out easily through the person's profile. A quick look at the groups the person is a member of will quickly reveal his whole world. Does his/her world correspond to my world ? If yes, then I might accept the offer. But what am I looking for in Second Life ? Well, that is something I still have to work out.
I think that I read somewhere that if you decline some one's friendship offer or kick him out of your friend's list, you will never be able to make friends with that person again in SL (under your current name). So, there is always the possibility to make friends with someone, and keep him/her, locked in the cellar, that is, not let him see your online status. And then one day, when you need that person for some reason or another, you can contact him and say: "Hey Buddy, long time no see ! " The problem is to explain where you were all that time....
SL knew what they were doing when they enabled this function of not letting your friends see your online status. It can be pretty stressful when you get three or more people simultaneously calling you. The "friends" option in SL is not strictly reserved for social friendships but also serves for business purposes and contacts with clients or business partners. When one has more than 10 - 20 "friends", and still wants to surf SL with a peaceful state of mind or concentrate on doing some work, it is indispensable to be able to control if people see you online or not.


So did I finally accept that friendship offer ? Yes, I did...