Between Consenting Avatars

I'm going to be tedious and blog about blogging.
Well, not exactly blogging, but the way bloggers interact.

This based largely on my own observations and experiences over the last year.

To date, blogging has given me the greatest moments of happiness, and the lowest of all lows.
Like many of you, this a country I'll never leave. It is my cyber-England.
Oh, don't get me wrong I don't get all teary eyed about a green and pleasant land. It's more that I feel at home in a land where the mediocre is King, a land infested with motorway service stations, fast food outlets, housing estates and business parks. Where people congregate in communal living rooms at the end of the street and bitch about the world over large glasses filled with liquid grain extracts.

Same with Blogland. I like it here. Sometimes it downright sucks, but hey, it's home.
Part of it is, it's all new. It's like being a pioneer. We're starting afresh here. We are making up the rules as we go along.

NEVER FORGET THAT. It's not be done before. Largescale social interaction of people not physically in proximity to eachother.
In a sense, we are disembodied souls.

We react, interact and emote to eachother, fleshlessly. And maybe, we, of all people, are the first discover what the hypothesised interaction of the fleshless, would be like.
The way souls might interact in Purgatory.

And I think we swing wildly, to thinking it's real, to thinking it's not real.

It's neither. It's DIFFERENT, very different. We still haven't got to grips with the dynamics. People talk left, right and centre about nettiquette and rights and wrongs on the internet, but most of what is said, is missing the main points.

First thing to remember, is why codes of conduct exist. Reason is simple, we want to know the best way to behave so WE don't get hurt.
So we develop systems that prevent people arguing, and potentially, fighting.
Chivalry is a case in point. A rigidly determined system, which has a complex way of differing groups interacting to eachother.

Kneel on both knees to God, one knee to the King. The superior party offers a hand to be kissed, as does a woman. Peasants fight peasants, knights fight knights. It is tantamount to warcrime, for a knight to hack at the peasants, but skinning alive all the male inhabitants of a conquered city, is fine, even if they ARE fellow Christians.

A code of behaviour for a world where being powerful meant you had to wear steel, carry steel, and BE steel.

The code of chivalry is less useful in a world where battles are carried out using computer screens and missiles.

The internet is a funny place. And I think now bloggers are still cyber children. We've not worked out WHY it is that RL rules don't work here, why they won't work, and what rules ARE necessary and WILL work.

Well, I'll tell you the simple reason why. Being in someone's physical presence affects how you treat them.
Ever looked down at a really nasty comments section? Where one blogger really twists the knife in? Sometimes, bloggers seem to forget the humanity of other bloggers. And of course, it's easy to. Something about never having met someone allows you to forget their reality. To treat them in a way you wouldn't, if they were real. Maybe at a deep level, it is done with a clear conscience, because a 'real' person isn't getting hurt.
I know one fairly respected blogger, who I actually think DOES think like that.

And the dynamic that allows it, is this.
You couldn't say such things to, or about, someone in a place of work. In an office, there's much banter, crude innuendo, etcetera. I guess most people in modern life are used to jovially being accused of alcoholism, homosexuality, liking Abba, and these general sorts of schoolyard humour many times every day. But some things, you wouldn't say.

Because the reaction you'd get, would be dramatic.
And we've all seen it go just that little bit too far sometimes. A chair flies back, a man rises to his feet. 'Speak to me like that again, I'll come over there and bang you out.'

It's underlying every piece of human interaction. Some things, you just don't do, because it's a recipe for getting a good kicking.
So, jokes stay jokes. You don't take advantage of people. You pick up on the warnings signs. And you seek to know people, so you can spot the warnings signs early. You learn what makes them tick, so you can work at life together, and not be at blows.

This is how human culture works. Try to make people hug you, not punch you. That's what we all do every day.

Except here, there's no hugging and no punching.

Sad isn't it, take away the possibility of violence, and people have an added potential to be nasty to eachother. Nasty where it really counts. Because a black eye heals. Our words here, are here for all time. For our grandchildren to read.

And that's what we should be thinking of. There is something here that SHOULD motivate all of us. OURSELVES.
Because do you know what your blogs are? They're the real you. You picked the colour scheme, you write the posts, you choose the widgets. You picked the way you wanted to present yourself.




You chose everything about your avatar. You even chose your name.
You have a power here to make yourself everything you want to be.

And that should motivate you. Motivate you to BE the fleshless. Not lurking behind a terminal allowing very flesh induced sentiments run riot because you don't fear a real knuckly fist.
Your obligations here are simple. To read, write, comment, discuss. Judge? Maybe. But on what is written.

I think there has to be an ethos, an attitude that this IS an environment with rules and boundaries around it, just as one has rules in a working environment. And one of those useful work rules to be imported I think, is the boundary between PERSONAL and PROFESSIONAL relationships. Even now, people don't seem to get this.

Many companies will not employ couples. Many companies realistically expect that if two of their employees get really serious with eachother, really, one of them should seek work elsewhere. It's not good for two people to spend work AND leisure time together for one thing. It's a dynamic the business doesn't need.

Inter-office romance is rife, naturally. And often these things go bad. What matters is whether or not people shut up about it. What MOST often happens is the woman (in most cases), goes round slagging off the male, accusing him of luring her into bed on false pretences.
What happens next?
The obvious. She gets sacked. Why? Because she's not doing her job properly. She's making it hard for another colleague- her ex-lover- to did HIS job properly. The business doesn't care about her violent emotions- what it does care about, is people doing their jobs.

Now trust me, if you are the frequent cause of too many women leaving, then yes, you will probably get into trouble. You're forcing up recruitment costs (Yes, I DID get such a warning some years back).

The general rule is, if you and a colleague are engaged in out of hours fraternisation, keep it out of working hours.

At work, you are just colleagues.

And the same HAS to be so in Blogland. Just as two people's working relationship, must come before their personal relationship, and if the two cannot be kept totally separate, it is the second that must be sacrificed, the same surely, is true of blogging.
Put simply, any personal connections formed with other bloggers, shouldn't affect Blogland. If the blogosphere is conscious that two bloggers are more than just friends, there is something wrong. For a woman to write a post telling another blogger to stay away from her man (and naming the man as another blogger) is in Blogland, completely unacceptable. At this point, a personal relationship has intruded beyond its boundaries. In cases such as this, the personal relationship should end. Personal relationships should not intrude with blogging ones, simple as.

The same of course, is true with your RL friends/family/partner. Just as your professional relationships aren't their business, nor are your blogging ones. It's worth pointing out, I think, to RL people, that your online discussions can't lead to anything that will hurt THEM. So it's really none of their business.

Ah yes, you say. But wouldn't a partner have the right to know if you were flirting with women online?
No. Because it's online. By definition, it's not actually physical. Why would you care?
My ancient history ex was a terribly jealous woman. But she never minded that I used to take my engagement ring off at work. She knew why- she didn't have a problem. Flirting is good interaction, twenty-two year olds sans engagement rings, are more attractive to a female buyer, than one who wears one.
Even when I HAVE been attached, never on the nine to five.

Being visibly attached, is bad business sense. Bad Business sense is bad commission sense, which is bad wallet sense. And I also find, you tend to get on better with your female colleagues, if they hear you talking about women (shows you're interested), but never the same one for too long (shows you're basically available).

Same at parties. Bringing a woman who is clearly a long term feature (as opposed to some bird you just met in the pub the night before), tends to mean, less interesting conversation, with less people. It's a fact of life.

There's a time and a place for the whole couple thing. In the privacy of your own homes. But in social interaction, being part of a couple, is bad for overall social dynamism. And Blogland is certainly a place that needs to remain visibly couple-free.

And while we're at it, why not remove some of the other hostile interactions as well? Think a bit more about what our grandchildren will think when they read it.

But anyway, I thought I'd end with something positive.
There are really nice things to find here. Some new things.

I've been puzzling over the last two weeks, well actually I tell a lie, longer than that. Something that I couldn't really explain. Like the missing piece to a puzzle, but quite what it was the missing piece to, I didn't know.

Now I do. And it's cool. It's something that doesn't really exist in real life. CAN'T. It is something completely amazing, that can ONLY EXIST BECAUSE THE BLOGOSPHERE EXISTS.

It couldn't exist in real life, I don't think.

It's a bit like Bohrium can only exist for a fraction of a second in a nuclear reactor. Ingredient X, isolated.

The missing ingredient of True Love.

You see, the traditional equation Sex+ Friendship= Love, is patently false.

Tried it, it doesn't work. Having sex with your female friends, doesn't create love. Being friends with your sex partners doesn't create love.
Problem is, we keep thinking it does, and then we end up no longer friends, but if neither party sees it as anything other than friends having sex, there isn't a problem. I always find it a suitable arrangement.

So there's clearly an ingredient missing. But what?
Reason why we can't identify it, I've realised, is because we never really experience ingredient X on it's own on real life.

We know that Sex on its own isn't love, but we have it. We know that friends on its own isn't love, but we have friends.

Ingredient X, on its own isn't love. But just as with sex and friends, it can still be great to have ingredient X on its own.
Love is rewarding, because it gives you all three, and with ingredient X, it's normally the only way you can get it.

But blogging has changed that.

You see, I know- and am happy- that I have ingredient X. It is the missing part of the equation.
What is it? Kind of like devotion, I think. I suppose, with True Love, there has to be element of thinking about someone in that curious way, a blend of religious worship, but also the way you feel when the dog is trying to get onto your lap- yes he is making it hard for you to read the paper, but you can't say no, really. He's too cute.



And I think that's actually quite nice. To be devoted to someone, but never think of them sexually, have no thoughts about your lives ever being interlinked, never feel possessive about them, never worry about what they're doing, unless you think it will hurt THEM. There's no relationship to be preserved, no bargaining, you don't know their bodily form, maybe you never will.

It comes completely from the mind, from logic, reason. There is no chemistry, no physicality.
It is untainted by the flesh.

But here's the amazing thing. In RL, you only get Ingredient X from being in Love with someone. The internet allows you to find it with people you'll never fall in love with. To admire somebody purely for how they think, for what's inside them. To come to find their thoughts a crucial part of your day, and never desire to possess them in the flesh. Indeed, you suspect that if you met, it would ruin everything.

It is amazing, blogging.

We've got a lot to work out.
But I think the game is worth it.