The Secret To Happiness (in SL)...

...or at least a modicum of satisfaction...is...NO EXPECTATIONS

So there I am, canoodling with my favorite playmate in SL, the one guy who I think is kinkier and freakier than I am,,,and...he disappears...not physically, just 5 minutes with no comment. My first thought, should have been rather obvious...but that's not like him. He likes to announce these things...

So then, I felt myself starting to get annoyed...and then angry..and then my BP started to rise, and I thought wait a damn minute...why am I getting upset? He responds that he had a phone call..and I was like...okay....deep breath...calm down...no problem.

And then it hit me...its so much more fun when we can have time together and just relax and enjoy what comes of it. All of my upset and stress lately - both in SL and RL - has had to do with my expectations not being met. Now, in RL there is some degree of control there...but honestly...in most situations...I can't control whether or not someone else meets my expectations. I can't make them show up when they say they will...I can't make them do what they say they will ro what I want them to do. So rather than be upset and continually disappointed and hurt by their failure to meet my expectations...why not change the one thign I CAN control - my own expectations. After all, its not fair to expect someone to exist to meet my needs - it needs to be a give and take. And if I'm getting upset that they are living our their own lives and doing their own things...why?? I can change my own expectations - or eliminate them - and just enjoy what happens, without building the anticipation to an anticlimactic high that always leads to a devastatingly disappointing low...

So that's my new philosophy - NO EXPECTATIONS. I don't expect anything, I don't get disappointed. We might make tentative plans, or suggestions, and if they don't happen, so be it - I'll go find something else to do. Its fucking hard enough to try to make thigns work according to any sort of PLAN in RL, let alone SL. So I'm done. No more plans. No more expectations. No more disappointments.

Same goes with Damien. Yes, a part of me is seriously grieving...but hey..if he doesn't come back, then so be it. That is life. Loss is part of life. I cannot keep waking up every morning and being disappointed with the lack of an email. I cannot keep logging into SL everyday waiting for the bottom to drop out and the sim to be gone. If it happens, it happens. Such is life, and especially SL. I miss him, terribly, but he either doesn't - or can't - miss me, so why stress myself over it? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I have enough to worry about in RL without stressing out over SL relationships.

NO MORE EXPECTATIONS :) And Poly/Rowan lives her SL happily ever after - carefree and enjoying the moment :)