Did I Hurt Your Virtual Feelings?

The following is based upon incidents that happened to me in real life. The chat site mentioned is not this one and anyone from this chat site should not take offense as I have never used this chat site.

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I spend too much time online. I will admit it fully. In my own defense, I am disabled and virtually housebound therefore the internet is my lease on life.

Many years ago when I first began my online life, I became involved in BDSM and the Master/slave (aka Dominant/submissive) lifestyle. It is something I enjoy as my father, RIP, was very dominant in real life and that is the type of male I was and am used to being around. I began performing cyber sex years ago. I know many of you find cyber sex a waste, disgusting, etc. But being disabled, I really do not have a great many options for my sexual outlets.

I also became involved in role playing online. Role playing is exactly that: you invent a role then you play it. I have played men and women, submissives and dominants, you name it, and I have played it. I got involved in a few MMORPGs as well although I do not spend as much time on them lately.

I purchased a membership to a website that is chat based where they have a great many role plays you can participate in. The one I was most fond of was where I was playing an owned slave by the name of zia. Zia was popular enough and I must tell you that one of my most memorable scenes I had with her was when a reader from this website unknowingly asked zia to act out my story 'SantaClaus@northpole.com'. It is a small online world after all.

Zia, through hard work, earned a collar to the house she longed to belong. The Master of the house was and is the most magnificent Master I have ever met online and I wanted to be owned by him. I swore to all that he would be my last Master, virtual or real, ever and he will be. My chain sisters knew I wrote on this website under the name lindiana and often read my stories. Sometimes they would provide feedback. So they knew I was a writer and enjoyed being a bit comical. All was going well and I was happy.

I made up the character of zia. She was 23, with long red curls and green eyes. I am not zia. She was a role I invented to play in this particular house. I did not consider anything I did as zia to be real because she is not. She was invented in particular to be pleasing to men. And I worked very hard at making her just that. I enjoyed being owned as I enjoy service. I enjoy serving and taking care of men. I took my collar and my service in this house very seriously. I did my best to try to make the resident Masters and house guests feel wanted and hoped they would enjoy their visits.

One day a Master came by to visit who was having a bad day. In my service to try to cheer him, I made up a story that made the three oldest girls of the house (kay, ebony and cye) look rather ridiculous. But then I like to tell stories. I was in an especially humorous mood at the time and wrote the entire story tongue in cheek. I thought nothing of it except I did arrive in the house on roller skates and thought I would be reprimanded for that. Boy was I wrong!

Apparently, kay, ebony and cye's feelings were hurt over my story. It made me start looking at this whole living online lifestyle in a new light. I realized that although I had little choice, they did. They spent all their free time online. I understand that they have their reasons. Perhaps they have had too many failed relationships. Too many broken hearts. Too many tears shed. And so they decided to hide online so they would only have their virtual feelings hurt. That is fine if that is how they perceive life to be but I do not. And I do not want to become them.

Despite my repeated apologies, they refused to drop the issue of the story and their hurt feelings. This is when I began to realize that they had a problem. They cannot differentiate between what is real and what is not. I was not going to waste any more of my valuable real time arguing with three fictional girls in a fictional house so I turned in my collar and left. This situation got me thinking but then the following woke me up.

There was another girl that had lived in the house called softouch. She had left because the Master had disappeared in real time for about four months so most of the girls had left, fearing he was not coming back. When the Master returned, the only girls who had remained were ebony and cye. He allowed kay to return and tried to get softouch to come back but she refused. She told me as zia it was because she had met another man, a real life Master, on this chat site that we both were using and she was devoting her life to him. I worried because there are a bunch of losers on this site (a bunch of nice guys as well but it is hard to separate them) but she insisted she knew what she was doing.

She had made a new character in another role play on this website and her character there was married to her Master's character. Her Master disappeared and it turned out he was involved in a real life accident. She is in Ohio or someplace like that and he is in Georgia. So she took it upon herself to get in a car and drive to Georgia to be with him. When she showed up at the hospital, his real life family took one look at her and told her to go home. I have visions of them thinking she was some internet stalker. This may not be the case but it very well could be.

This reminded me far too well of my incident with Steve. You all know Steve. I wrote a ton of poems on this website about him. I met him online and I thought I was in love with him. He was terrific in every way except he is in Georgia and I am in NJ. Because of my illness, I would not allow him to come meet me although he was more than willing. He truly cared about me and got worried about me often. As one of the side effects of my medications, I sleep very deep sometimes. Steve is a cop in real life and one night was unable to reach me by phone. I was asleep but I sleep so soundly that even though I heard the phone, I did not have the energy to answer it. Steve, being a cop and concerned, called my local police because he could not get me. They came knocking at my door saying "your internet boyfriend called to have us come by and check on you". 'Your internet boyfriend' when they said it almost sounded like 'your serial killer locked up for life boyfriend'. I was embarrassed but all things considered I just let it go.

My family had been rolling their eyes all along when I would go on and on about Steve. To them, he was not real. And now I understand why.

How do we separate what is real versus what is not when we spend all of our waking moments in a virtual world?

Kay, ebony and cye could not separate their virtual feelings from their real feelings. And they took something said about them by a stranger...a stranger!!!!...so personally they were overcome with pain over it. At first, I was hurt by their reaction but then I came to realize that their reaction over how I portrayed them in a story was total overreaction. I wrote a story on this website called 'Stinkerface and the Tot of Terror' about my real life great nieces. In it, I portray them as horrible little girls who try to hurt me. I want you all to know that to this day, they have never demanded an apology about how I portrayed them.

Softouch drove over four states to see her virtual love and was told to leave! I admit I do not know the whole story about why she was told to go home but all things considered, she barely knew the man.

And Steve called the real life police over concern about his virtual girlfriend. It was sweet and I loved him for it but it was also embarrassing as hell.

Have we become virtual idiots? Are we all virtually crazy?

How do you separate what happens to your virtual identity versus what happens to your real identity?

If all you do is work all day so you can come home and be online with your virtual life, are you really living?

What are we teaching our children when we allow them to live for being online? We have all read the horror stories about these predators and pedophiles that find their targets on blogs like myspace.com. Parents have to regulate their children's online lives! You are the parent, just do it! Don't expect George W. or anyone else to watch out for your children online. Primarily, it is YOUR responsibility as the parent.

I have also met parents that spend huge amounts of time online. One set of parents I met online would speak with other adults online about their real life sons. One son was in constant trouble at school and the parents wanted to know what they should do. They would ask other adults online for advice. One particular woman they asked was a real life social worker and while she was replying to them, I was jumping up and down in the background shouting "Why don't you turn off your computer and spend some time with him instead of asking a total stranger online for help?" It made me sick. Because of my illness, I cannot have children so those that have them and take them for granted make me want to slap something or someone silly.

If you become involved with someone online, when do you decide it is no longer virtual but real? My relationship with Steve ended because of lies. I was having cyber sex with other men online and he considered that cheating. However, he was also having cyber sex with other women online but lied to me about it. And yet he will not admit to this day he lied to me.

When I met him, he was in the midst of a divorce. He admitted to me that his online addiction had been a factor in the end of his marriage. However, that did not stop him. He had an addiction to cyber sex and frequently picked up women online for it. He preferred married women. I was the exception because I am single. He is currently living with a woman he met online. She divorced her husband and abandoned her two children to move to Georgia to be with Steve. That is real life, people. She left her kids for a man she met online.

I don't want to become kay, ebony and cye. I don't want to work all day just so I can come home and have cyber sex with some guy online. That is not how I see my future.

I don't want to become softouch. I don't want to be made to look a fool by believing that what I feel for someone online is what they feel as well.

I don't want to become Steve, a person looking for a quick session to get off and then allowing that woman to become so wrapped up in you that she will abandon her own real life to become a part of yours.

I just want to be me: A disabled woman who writes and laughs and lives and enjoys life. It is time to stop dreaming about a real life and live one. People you meet online will never replace your family, your friends and your real life.

If you think you are spending too much time online, you probably are. Turn off your computer and go to the mall. Speak to a stranger. Smile at a clerk. Live life.

Live life.

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This is my opinion. Everyone is entitled to one. If you wish to post yours in the feedback, please do not drone on and on. Please make your remarks readable. And if you insist on pointing out my mistakes in life, leave specific dates, times and incidents. Thank you.