On Being A Bastard

When I entered Second Life a little over two years ago I began exploring and discovered many things. I got into a few relationships that were unusual by most standards, and I found myself finally deciding that I wanted to find someone to have a normal simulated life with - a home and a family.

It took several tries, but I thought a found what I wanted. I partnered and married. We bought a house together. We got "pregnant", or at least she did, and we went through a 12 week pregnancy leading to a (prim) baby girl.

It should have been so good. I wish it had been. There were so many things that lead me to leave her. Yes, I was the bastard. I left her. We had gotten very close, but I was beginning to feel guilty about my real wife not knowing what I was doing. My SL wife even encouraged me to tell my real wife what I was doing. When I told my therapist* about it, she said I had to be truthful. I need to either tell my wife or end the relationship. I agonized about it. I didn't want to end the relationship. My SL wife was a sweet and loving woman. She needed me in her life and she filled a need in mine for intimacy that had faded away. The alternative of telling my real wife was risky. I might have to quit SL altogether if she demanded it. My real wife can be less than understanding at times.

"Hi Honey. Did I tell you I am having an online relationship with another woman? We are partnered and are having a simulated baby. Just thought you might want to know."

"No Dear. You didn't tell me. Here, let me give you an unsimulated head concussion."

Well I was very hesitant. It took me almost a month to get up the nerve. When I finally found a private moment, where she was in a good mood, I told her that I had an SL wife.

"I know," she replied coldly. Then she continued, "but what really bothers me is the amount of money you spend in THAT game."

With a huge sigh of relief I promised to stop spending so much money. I had not realized that over a period of three months I had spent about $120, around 48,000 L$.

I had gone from renting the smallest one-room beach house property for 300 L$ a week, which happily coincided with my stipend from my premium account, to paying a tier of 4400 L$ per week on an island with enough room to build and furnish a large 3 bedroom house. I downgraded to a basic account, but I still felt the need to pay my way with the house. She was paying every other week, but I was still spending more than I was comfortable with.

Then there were the children. When we decided to get "married" in Second Life, we immediately started working on a family. That was the fun part. The pregnancy was fun too. We made appointments with the birthing clinic, got sonograms of the growing "baby" and went out and bought lots of furniture. That lead to the larger house on a larger piece of land. She had to buy maternity clothes and sensible, comfortable shoes. I bought a "Dad 2B" shirt. The fun ended after the "baby" was born.

Prim babies are boring. Adopting children is no better. We tried seven times to find a son or daughter. We spent a lot of money on children's furniture and playground toys. We would adopt a child and then they weren't on when we were. We wouldn't hear or see them for days or weeks. Just like a real marriage, children will not hold it together. At first I wanted it, the idea of children. But in the end it was just a waste of time.

And then there was real life. It has a nasty habit of getting in the way with your fantasy, Walter Mitty life. I've been staying longer hours after work. We started going to the YMCA to exercise in the evenings. And I had made promise to myself, my wife, and my therapist that I would cut down on my time in Second Life.

My SL wife had problems too. I would spend night after night waiting for her. I didn't know that the guy that she said was her RL brother was really her RL boyfriend and now they were breaking up after years together. I knew she had medical problems, but she didn't talk about her constant cough or other things. She would get depressed and not talk for days. In the end she told me she had tried suicide. I knew nothing until she was out of the hospital. She complained that I abandoned her, but she had been slowly cutting me out of her life. Maybe not intentionally, but it left me lonely.

My favorite place is Morris. We have a large group of friends there, but she stopped going. She stopped wanting to see the same people that I still enjoy being with. All those nights I waited for her. I sat in Morris for the company of my friends, but I dreaded the questions about her. How is she? When are you going to see her again? Is there something wrong? How is it going? I had no real answers.

One day one of my oldest and dearest friends asked me, "Harry, what are we doing here?"

Being my normal obtuse self, I replied, "Sitting on the wall. Wanna go dancing?"

"No, philosophically. What are you and I doing here?"

SL and the ones that are now gone. We laughed about some of the crazy things our small clique had done. We wondered what happened and why it wasn't any fun anymore. We decided that when our current partnerships ended, we would never do it again.

It was that moment I realized that my SL marriage was over. So I became a bastard.

When the woman I had loved for six months came online and she said let's go look for another child avatar to adopt, I said no. When she asked what was wrong, I said it was over. All the time she was crying and asking me what we could do to fix it, I wanted to say something, anything to make it better, but I was numb. It was if I had just shot myself and was watching it all in some disembodied way as the life drained out.

When she repeated an old accusation that I had been cheating on her. I denied it. I hadn't cheated. She told me how others had reported me leaving Morris at the same time other women had to go to a rendezvous somewhere I had logged off or transported to another sim when a girl pressed too hard for my attention. Her accusations were a response to her pain, but they hurt me too. I never cheated on her.

So that's it. That's my story. I'm not writing it for anyone to read. I wrote it for myself. I need to put it down so in time I can read it again and remember that anyone can be a heartless bastard. All he has to do is be selfish.

* I have been seeing a therapist to deal with depression and some other issues for a couple of years now. She felt hiding this relationship was harmful to my real life marriage and that if it bothered me enough to tell her, then I needed to make a change.