Hill of Beans
One of the first cuddle meshes we worked on together was a cuddle chair pose in IMVU. A cute GA pose with a long kiss. Indeed cuddle poses were the bread and butter of the IMVU catalog, if not stripper items which in truth always had higher sales. Basically tho, people wanted to hold hands or otherwise make a physical connection somehow in the virtual world. When I first joined IMVU there was voice in the virtual rooms but they soon realized the bandwidth for voice was greater than the growing user base and that feature was removed very quickly. Not being able to “talk” to your dance partner, put even more pressure on finding a way to connect through the poses and prose. Which the community was adept at doing anyway.
No small wonder then, that bean bag chairs, gaming rockers and other floor pillows are a big part of the furniture shop virtual catalog. A cuddle spot is a cozy place to set your avatar down, if you aren’t actively dancing in a club. The assumption of course is that your partner is also watching the same screen. But I learned early on, that it’s not always the case. In our book ELUZN there’s a scene straight out of IMVU where a couple does a coop action as a TEST to see if the other avatar MENTIONS it in the room chat. Example: We are sitting on a cuddle pose (or slow dance) and I choose a two person action that hugs you, or tweeks your ear or rear. Now if you are ALSO watching the two of us on screen, your Avi might say something or in some way acknowledge the action played. BUT if you are say … in another ROOM or another TAB open on your browser, you will have missed the quick 10 second action and remain silently “kissing” on the pose. You FAILED the test.
Which begins the round robin of drama and delusions that are as much a part of the virtual venue as sweet basil in pesto sauce. And of course drama isn’t isolated to the 3D landscapes, we make up much of the story between the lines of our DMs. What did that emoji really mean? Why are they really asking me that question? How could they imply that I would ever do that?!
We all make up stories, because largely we all see the world thru the filtered narrative of the egoic mind. I don’t really SEE YOU, I interact with my construct of who I created you to be in my mind. I project my assumptions about your motives and your non-verbal cues based on my selective amnesia of how I view the world. Have you seen those reels where they demonstrate that you will HEAR the word or phrase that you are READING e.g. Green Needle or Brain Storm.
Think about the impact of what that tells us about any illusion of objectivity or common ground. I mean HOW can we expect to experience something with another person when so much of what we process and take in is being molded by our own wiring and not the external world around us.
So those two avatars on the bean bag chair share the same bits/bytes of the common program but what we take away with us is completely our own story. So when we ask is something “real”? What could we possibly even mean?
Turns out bean bag chairs in the real world have undergone significant changes since I was in my hippy dippy younger days. Reminds me of the papasan chair cushions Monks and I made IRL when he first came to live with me 10 years ago.
Gosh we looked much younger than what I would have thought a decade looks like. But I do believe at a certain point, time goes downhill at a much faster pace than the slow chug of the rollercoaster making it’s way to the top of the ride.
Monks and I actually BOUGHT two bean bag chairs this week. We have a small alcove between the closet, our bedroom and the bath where Monks tends to a 75 Gallon planted aquarium. It really is a lovely focal piece. (There’s a cichlid tank IN the closet that Bitzy believes is HERS, but that’s a shaggy dog story for another time.)
Since Monks is working on the science of carbon dioxide delivery for optimal plant growth, he’s been spending a lot of sitting time at his fish tank and the idea of a comfy place for the two of us sounded like a keen idea.
Of course bean bag chairs were the first thing on both our minds. Turns out beans are mostly a thing of the past. The industry of cheaply made knock offs now seems to all use foam bits. Scraps of unknown origin. But we’ll ignore the VOCs for the time being and just enjoy the view.
Our first night sitting in our cozy spot, Monks asked me if I saw what the coolie loach just did in front of us .. and I had to look up from my phone and admit that I wasn’t watching the tank. And I smiled at him softly .. because I realize he had just played a coop action and I wasn’t really in the room. 😉
