Photo courtesy of Isabelle Cheren. Watch her YouTube video, A Virtual Romance in Second Life.

HEY HEARTUN~ I came to Second Life a couple months ago and started hanging out in Club Arsheba where I met the love of my life. Other than work and (some) sleep I spent all of my time either with her, or waiting for her. I bought her lots of nice things, and wrote her poetry all the time.

Then the bitch dumped me! She muted me too!

So I made an alt, started hanging out at the club again, and met her over again. Things went really well for a while but then she recognized me, I think from my poetry. How can I win her back? ~THIRD TIME CHARMER

DEAR CHARMER~ Benjamin Franklin said ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.’

You clearly fit that definition, so lets try to improve your cover.

Go to www.lyricsondemand.com and bone up on some Al Green lyrics. Instead of writing your own poetry, steal from the master.

Tell her things like:

• I just can’t stop from holding you
• I can’t quit a love like this from consuming you
• There must be a reason why I feel so free
• Me loving you, you loving me
• Your love is more than I deserve
• Oh baby, you made me, you gave me your love… 

Memorize a bunch of Rev. Green’s lyrics and use them liberally in all your communication with this woman. Then, when she finds you out again (and she will) go get a lobotomy, make another alt, and try using the lyrics of the Moody Blues. If that doesn’t work, try picking up a new girlfriend in Port Cos. ~HEARTUN BREAKER

Photo Courtesy of Second Life Adventures

HEY HEARTUN~ Can you still be friends with someone after you’ve cybered? Even if you don’t want to cyber with them any more? ~FRIENDS FOREVER

DEAR FRIENDS~
The short answer is ‘no.’

But it’s more complicated than that.

Cyber sex is the safest thing out there, and lets face it… it is convenient. Assisted masturbation can be very exciting,  but if that’s all you’ve got with your partner — that partnership may fade with time. (Perhaps in minutes).

It sounds like that is what happened here — from what little you gave us to go on — and I’m guessing you just don’t want to be a jerk and drop your boring lover like an adult would. So you’ll pull the ‘lets be friends’ routine and meet with the predictable results. Your erstwhile lover will know they are being spurned, get pissed off or clingy, and give you a reason to drop them where you can blame THEM for the breakup.

After all, you still wanted to be friends and they got all ‘weird’ on you. Right?

Be an adult. Just tell them you are no longer getting what you want out of the relationship and need to move on. After a cooling off period, if you run into them again, try being FRIENDLY (i.e. civil and kind). And as for your next conquest, try being friends first — if you really want the whole package, and not just a dalliance. See if you have something in common besides mutual masturbation and one handed typing.

The key here is that adults have a fair idea of what they’re looking for before they engage others in ‘more than friends’ play. Sure, they get it wrong, but they’re trying. If you don’t have a clue, you are doomed to hurt others and be frustrated with whatever you get.

~HEARTUN BREAKER

EXTRA~ Author Caroline Takeda masterfully covers the art of cyber sex on the site Second-Life-Adventures.com 

• Second Life Sex — The Definitive Guide
• Emotes in Role-Play and Virtual Sex

I am young, and gay, and I live in a rural part of the Western United States — and being ‘out and proud’ is not at all a safe option for me. The nearest gay bar is hundreds of miles away. I’ve never met anyone in my area who came out. There’s a lot of homofobia and open bigotry, so I never let on. I played it straight throughout high school and after, out of fear for my life. 

Just after high school, and during Covid lock down, I discovered Second Life and it was as if I could finally breathe! 

I found a community of gay furries, and they became more real to me than any of my friends from home. I quickly met a man and fell in love. He showed me how to have sex in Second Life, and taught me about scarfing — you know, using a scarf (or something like it) to cut off the blood supply for a greater overall experience. 

Image Courtesy of Derpibooru

The last time we were at it, about a week ago, his avie went ‘afk’ and he stopped typing… eventually he logged off. 

I’m afraid he died. But I don’t have any of his contact information so I don’t even know how to check up on him. What do I do? ~SCARFING FURRY

DEAR SCARFING~ I understand that cutting off the supply of oxygen to the brain at the time of orgasm can intensify that orgasm. I’m told it does this because as the brain approaches asphyxia it kicks out more endorphins. Some people put a plastic bag over their head, others self-strangulate manually, and many us a ligature — a scarf — to cut off the blood flow at the neck. I get the logistics, and dangers, from this activity — and appreciate your concern. 

It is possible that your lover died.

But here’s the thing. You’re in Second Life, and while this relationship appears to be unique, intense and important to you — a lot of people in Second Life just suck. If they didn’t, I’d have nothing to write about. You don’t say why, but you don’t have any other way to contact your lover — and that just seems wrong. If this relationship was as important to him as it is to you I would have expected SOME real life information to have been exchanged. At the very minimum, social media accounts for your in-world avies.

Death is a possibility, but if I were taking bets I’d give long odds that your lover just closed his account rather than end it with you. It’s shitty, but not at all uncommon.  ~HEARTUN BREAKER

Photo Courtesy of *Eat Me* (a store in the marketplace)

HEY HEARTUN~ My wife, girlfriend, ‘partner’ whatever — I think she cheating on me. We ben talking about her livin Textas and moving up to me in Detroit and what not. We good together. We play alla time. But month ago she play that WoW game, now she don’t come on SL hardly never!!!!

I ask if she cheetin but she say “no” but I see she on with the AIM alla time but she ignore me some time so I thinking she on Wow with some dude!!!

When she DO come play SL she all “No, my computer just on. I was out.” but I no she lyin. What Ima do? I hella mad but she don no that yit. ~HELLA ‘G’

DEAR HELLA~ When did gangstas start playing Second Life? Um — never. Whether you are black or white or Latino or Asian, you’ve got to drop the ‘too cool for school’ hip-hop mode of speech because it just doesn’t work in an online environment. Face it, if you are here YOU ARE A GEEK. It’s just a question of to what extent or degree. 

Now, to your question, I presume you’ve tried to get her WoW name and server, with the intention of stalking her there. Since you didn’t mention it, I’m guessing that she didn’t divulge that information. So here’s what you do.

Trick her by acting extra trusting. When she isn’t around, don’t send her messages but when she is around say things like “I like hanging around you” and ask her to tell you about her day. Use complete sentences. Act caring and concerned for her wellbeing. Don’t let on that you are needy and distrustful. Act like every moment with her is a gift that makes you happy.

It’s just a gues,s but I doubt she’s ever experienced that from you, so these new emotions you evoke in her will throw her off guard. She’ll actually start spending more time with you instead of ignoring your IMs, lying to you about where she is, and trotting off to WoW to cyber some troll. ~ HEARTUN BREAKER

I tried to tell her several times that things weren’t working out without hurting her feelings but she just wasn’t “getting it”. When my first life became hectic I told her I didn’t have time for SL, that I couldn’t guarantee being on a lot in the near future, and that she shouldn’t wait for me.

I welcomed the opportunity to escape her. I even considered creating an alt. She kept messaging me over and over for months, even when I stopped responding. We un-partnered.

Since then real life situations have subsided a bit to the point where I have more time to spend in SL. She messaged me recently saying that she wants to talk about “us”. I don’t want to come back and have her think we’re “together”. How can I break it off without being an asshole? ~ RUNAWAY BOYFRIEND

DEAR RUNAWAY~ I get letters from people like her all the time.  In essence, what they tell me is that they came to Second Life, found a perfect lover, had a wonderful time with much love and hot cyber sex until their “perfect” partner started pulling away. That’s when they freak out. In your words, they get ‘clingy.’

Photo Courtesy of Duds for Dudes

You just happened to find a very needy woman who was unrealistic from the start in her expectations about this relationship. She likely does that in all her relationships, and groups all men into four categories:

• father figures
• brother figures
• evil bastards
• Prince Charming

She clearly has you tagged as Prince Charming, but will likely switch you to evil bastard when you stomp out the last flicker of her misguided love. You will Mute her then, but she’ll continue to stalk you and your friends and make life uncomfortable for a while. Then she’ll go into a ‘love hibernation’ of cynicism — saying stuff like ‘all men are pigs’ — and diving into activities that she found fun before you came along. She’ll be happy again one day, if wary.

Then she’ll meet another guy like you. You see the weakness and need in her, and see her as a challenge to conquer. You want to prove that all men are not pigs, and that you — in short — are Prince Charming. You win her over, have a wonderful time with much love and hot cyber sex, until the thrill of victory fades and something akin to ‘buyers remorse’ sets in. You push her away. Then you watch, and feel superior, as she self destructs in a very ‘clingy’ and predictable pattern.

You asked me how to break it off without being an asshole. You can’t. You need to break it off for the good of both of you, but you started this relationship preying on weakness. You are an asshole. The good news is you can change that part of you in your next relationship. You are not a father figure, brother figure or evil bastard — but you are no Prince Charming either. Try to get to know the next woman, and let her know you, BEFORE you try putting on your Prince Charming suit. It doesn’t fit anyway. And you want a woman who can handle the complexity that you are. For that to happen there are no shortcuts, and you don’t get to have much love and hot cyber sex first. ~HEARTUN BREAKER

I don’t have any real female friends here, or friends that identify as female anyway. And I’m starting to think that I am broken because I keep finding the same kind of wrong guy and I’m doing the same stuff — over and over and over.  I’m miserable — and I can’t blame my ex any more because he’s been out of my life for a while. I have been thinking of jumping to World of Warcraft with the new expansion but I think I’d be just as miserable there because I can’t stop being angry and broken. Please help me. ~ STUCK

DEAR STUCK~ I can’t fix you. Worse, you probably can’t fix what is wrong with you right away, and maybe not at all without professional help or boat loads of time. I came to Second Life in about the same condition as you back in the early months of 2005 — plus I was drinking to beat the band. I came to the grid because I was lonely, broken and my real life had fallen apart. Second Life didn’t fix any of that, well, maybe the loneliness.

I needed outside help. You may need some kind of outside help too. If you have a relationship with a religious organization, maybe a minister can help. There are religious types in Second Life as well. But a

New Ways Counseling & Support

lot of people find help with counseling and therapy — and that’s available in the real world and Second Life too. There are several online counselors if you do a search, but I dropped into New Ways Counseling and Support in Hauwei. I talked with a very smartly scripted therapy bot named Myke, but the place claims to have real counselors too. None were on duty at the time I was there, but it looked legit.

Your ex certainly hurt you, and you aren’t wrong or stupid to feel that hurt. But that ex, by your admission, is not in your life — and isn’t hurting you any more. He isn’t responsible for your pain today. He may have caused it, but it is your responsibility to either live with it — or change. You can get help with that, but no one else will do the work for you.

Ask yourself these two questions: How free do you want to be? and Are you willing to do what it takes to be free?

~HEARTUN

Photo courtesy: Raya Jonson and her Get Stuff store.

HEY HEARTUN~ I have made some choices that have made my second life more complicated than my first life could ever be. I met this guy off the rebound from my girlfriend leaving Second Life. He’s a decent guy and, well, I let things get hot and heavy and I quickly sold him on the idea of being exclusively mine. Things went well for a time. Then one day I surprised him with an SL pregnancy, which took him aback but after a short while he really got into the idea.

Then I met this girl. She was outgoing, exciting and very charismatic. We started Instant Messaging each other and spending a lot of time together — shopping — you know, the usual things. It was all innocent till she took me to this store that sold cages…yes I said cages. It was filled with BDSM toys and various things of that sort. I was very apprehensive at first, as I had never imagined those sort of activities in my life. Well, that quickly took a spin, we were fooling around with the cages and what not, just being silly, then in response to something she said I told her that I was never really the controlling type. I told her that I had always just followed the instructions and the lead of others.

That took the cake right there. This girl knew what she had to do from that point on. She started giving me orders — orders that were quite bizarre to me but for some reason I couldn’t stop and didn’t seem to want to. I really got into being, as she called me, her “pet”.

This relationship started taking me over until two days ago when for the first time the situation got sexual with this girl… and her girlfriend walked in on us. Then my guilt started eating me up and I knew I just had to tell my boyfriend about this. I wrote him a nice long notecard explaining all the lies I had told him and what I had done and wouldn’t you know it, the sod wasn’t even angry! All he said was that he knew that I had enjoyed girls before and he understood. He continued in his reply telling me that he had had BDSM experiences and had enjoyed dominatrix behaviours. He also made it clear that he would enjoy watching and participating in my actions with other women. While I know his reply wasn’t bad — it sort of disappointed me. Here’s why:

1. I lied to him. Should my deceitful actions be dismissed that quickly?
2. I think subconsciously I have lost interest in my relations with him — or men in general. I don’t know maybe I am just lost.
3. I think the fact that he wants to join in these other activities with me has turned me off him. For some reason that I don’t understand, this ‘being dominated’ activity that I have gotten into only seems to arouse me with women and very select few at that.

I don’t know what I have done other than complicate my SL life and been deceitful and I am not so sure what I am seeking right now but maybe this whole story can be summed up into one question. Should I leave this man or should I leave both the man and the woman and start entirely a new? ~ MOTHERHOOD BOUND

DEAR MOTHERHOOD BOUND ~ That lesbianic bondage love can sure have a strong allure, but you should have thought about that before you decided to get pregnant. Right now your virtual hormones are all over the map — and there’s no way you can make such an important decision in your condition.

Wait till you have the baby to decide, then do what is best for the baby. And if that involves ditching the dude make sure to be generous in your visitation arrangement with him.

Stephen Wu’s SL avatar Photo courtesy: Silicon Valley Law Group

If things get rough, seek out a lawyer specializing in online activity like Stephen Wu of the Silicon Valley Law Group.

~ HEARTUN BREAKER

Carmen King

I’ve been stalking the shit out of YouTube star Carmen King for a couple weeks now, and am completely obsessed with her! She has been streaming in other worlds like Sims 4 for a long time, but only joined Second Life a couple months back. If you haven’t watched any of her videos, she’s a freaking riot! (I have her first SL video at the bottom of this article).

I completely understand why 900,000 people follow her, and according to Wagner James Au over at the New World Notes — she’s dragging thousands of them into Second Life. CLICK HERE to read his article. (Oh, I also borrowed his graphic! Thank you Wagner!)

Chart courtesy of New World Notes.

I’ve sent Carmen King in-world PM’s asking to meet up with Meg, my reporter, at a hobo village. I would also love to have photographer Thirteen Loveless follow her around and snap a photo essay. But today I found something even more fun than all of that — riding horses!

Voodoo the horse is freaking nuts! He ran off a cliff!

A club that I dance at some times has been transformed into a beautiful mountain resort. I mean, there is still a club, but the rest of the sim has riding trails and beautiful mountains, streams, lakes and ocean front through which my horse VooDoo and I get to gallop!

VooDoo is nuts, and I’m not a very good rider, so we DID both go straight off the first cliff we came to — plummeting to certain death, only to have the heroic VooDoo save the day! He’s such a handsome horse!

Here are some other things I’d like to do with Carmen King:

• Go to ‘Topless Tuesdays’ at my favorite lesbian club with her
• Hang out in Ahern with her and introduce her to one of the griefers there (A couple men with names that begin with D come to mind!)
• Go fishing at Neo-Realms Fishing Village, maybe enter a contest!
• Enter a busy sim together and get into a screaming  lovers quarrel in open chat
• Make furry versions of ourselves

If any of this happens, I’ll keep you posted. If you have good ideas of what else I should do if I ever catch up with Carmen King, please leave them in the comments.

~HEARTUN

Men and women go through seven stages following a breakup, but they do so in no particular order — and they may linger or return to certain stages, as well as experience a couple stages at the same time. And those stages are different for each gender. ~Heartun

Men

1. Anger: ‘That bitch!’
2. Crying:(Most of this will happen outside of Second Life)
3. Lethargy: ‘Thank goodness for cheap beer and free Internet porn or I’d never put down the remote.’
4. Industry: ‘Wow! I’m getting so much work done — I can do anything!’
5. Overindulgence: World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, Madden, dumb young hotties (both real life, simulated and PornHub.)
6. Acceptance: ‘Oh well, that sucked — but not a damned thing I can do about it now.’
7. Redefinition of Self: ‘What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger — I just hope I don’t run across a woman who will kill me.’

Women

1. Anger: ‘That bastard!’
2. Gluttony: ‘Gimme ice cream and get me my fat clothes!’
3. Claiming Mutual Friends: ‘You and I are still friends, right?’
4. Industry: ‘I’ve rediscovered shopping… and I am so good at it I’ll save lots of money!’
5. Overindulgence: ‘Hey! Boys like me… and they don’t know how much I hate all men so I can do what I want with them!’
6. Acceptance: ‘That bastard!’
7. Redefinition of Self: ‘I’m going to start that diet, paint my room and actually go to that yoga class!’

Photo courtesy of Aphrodite Shop.

HEY HEARTUN~ How do I manage a personal life with a wife, three kids and Second Life? ~ NEED A THIRD LIFE

DEAR NEEDY~ I’m sorry, but there will be no ‘third’ life for you. What’s more, from the sounds of things your first life is about to get a lot less complicated.

My advice to you is to run up your credit cards by upgrading your computer. Even better, have some custom game box builder make you a dream machine with a super-duper  processors, loads of RAM, God-mode graphics cards, a huge flat screen or two and all the software you ever wanted. Dont worry about the cost, just slap it on the cards.

You’ll have to declare bankruptcy after your wife takes the kids far away from you and serves you with divorce papers anyway. Thank goodness your friends in Second Life won’t abandon you like that. ~HEARTUN