This is a bit of a long post, so please forgive me and bear with me! There is a point to it, after all!
I've been a pretty loyal, mostly active, user of SL for the last 18 years or so. I've seen a lot of stuff come and go like sculpties, to flexi clothing and hair, to dudes with giant shoulders and teeny tiny heads, super skinny women who loved the slut wear clothing, I've participated in and watched viewers like Green Viewer come and go, Phoenix - which later became Firestorm, become one of the best viewers available. I've watched fitted mesh come in, then more specific body mesh items become real. I've watched many, MANY different bodies and heads come, and I've seen the entry of PBR into the arena. I watched as camping was the go to for people wanting to earn a Linden or two, money trees, and other methods that required a LOT of patience. I watched gambling become taboo on SL, then come back again with a vengeance. I watched gachas become huge, then become illegal, then come back again.
I was here when Bloodlines was a huge thing and they were reprimanded for "tricking" people into approving being bitten without knowing it (hiding in busy areas with a ton of welcome notices and hiding their biting message in them knowing people are just clicking to get rid of the messages). I watched motorcycle clubs become HUGE, then watched as they slowly disappeared until there are just a few now. I watched as the club scene became extremely huge and it become the standard for SL. I even attended the first clothing "events" and watched many of them die a slow, painful death and others spring up to take their places.
I've been married in SL, I've been a father multiple times over, I've been a builder since I started, a designer, an award winning DJ at the biggest rock clubs. I've been a photographer, a horse jockey, a club owner, a landscaper, and a store owner. I sold Kittycats for years. I've even been a model. You could say there isn't much in SL that I haven't done.
However, there's one thing that is so puzzling to me that I just can't get used to it. I'm talking about making friends in SL. My wife and I were talking the other day about SL and we both feel SL has become so boring over the last few years, and our conclusion as to why is because people just refuse to step outside of their Discord servers, their cliques at the clubs (we all know they are in every popular club), their IMs or exclusive "family" or whatever groups and just become friends. They just don't want to make the effort!
It used to be people would go out of their way to become friends. Then those friends would go to other friends and eventually you had a group to hang with. Those times were so awesome back in the day. Hanging out at theme styled parties (like Halloween parties, Christmas parties, birthday parties, just regular dance parties) that didn't involve a club or shopping event. You could say "Hi" to someone, then you talked, and then you became friends. Hanging out after a live singer, or a club session, just being goofy, laughing until you almost cried, just enjoying the end of a long work day - sometimes all night long, it just seems like a distant memory now.
Quite honestly, SL is boring now. Yes, they still have places to explore. Yes, there are clubs (yawn, same ol same ol), yes, there are shopping events (lindens flow like water here) and whatever else there is out there to do, but people just don't talk to others anymore.
Clubs have the "cliques who all take up a large portion of a dance floor right in front/ middle, spamming local chat with endless gestures which keep the regular Joes from speaking in local, schmoozing up the DJ, or worse yet, the owner of the club for whatever "cool" reason there is, or worse yet for the DJ, going completely silent because they're in Discord or multi member chats so no one else can participate.
My wife and I would like to change this. We want to meet people and make friends with them. Most of our friends over the years have left SL and now we find ourselves with small friends lists, full of people who never talk or want to do something like hang out at clubs. Quite frankly, we miss the old SL. It used to be SO fun! So let's talk about who my wife and I are, and what we would like to do and see...
We would like to get back to having fun house parties. Playing games like Greedy or whatever. Swimming parties. Dance parties. Hanging around on an empty beach somewhere just being stupid silly and laughing our butts off. Meeting people and hanging out with people of differing cultures and ways of life. Just a solid, fun, core group of friends that we can count on and maybe make long term memories with.
In RL, I myself am 60 years old and my wife is 46 years old. We are both educators in RL - me, a 5th grade teacher and her a preschool teacher. We enjoy breedables, playing games, talking and watching movies. We go "fancy dancing" quite often, and she likes DFS farming. She has a store for DFS as well that she does pretty well at. We have three Zoobie babies, but to be honest they don't take a lot of time. We have a nice piece of land, with pretty stuff, lol!
We don't care what your age is, though young people (late teens and early 20s) might find us "old and boring, lol). We don't care if you're a furry, a vampire, a devil, a monkey or whatever you want. We just want to meet, maybe play a game like Greedy to get to know you, and possibly add you to a growing list of friends. We kinda hope we can kick start our little part of SL into becoming interesting and fun again.
In SL, my name is Aric Bonham and my wife's name is Arianna Milodanic. I know this is a bit of a strange way to meet people, but honestly - how else are you supposed to do it in SL anymore? If you're interested and would like to find the "old days" again, either here in Reddit or in SL, send us a message - we'd be happy to meet you!
