Don't Undervalue a Virtual Hug in Secondlife

I woke up the other morning and really wanted a hug, in these current times such things are no longer to be taken for granted.

So we do “virtual hugs”..in the Real world (*rolls eyes*). This is not what I’m referring to here though. Not the extending our arms and waving them about in an impersonation of a hug at someone stood 2 metres away. Some people may get some comfort from this gesture but for me, it just looks ridiculous and doesn’t really trigger the emotional response we need, so I don’t do it.

I’m also not talking about emoji and gifs (although the latter are usually more heartfelt) expressing the same sentiments.

What I’m referring to is something like this:

This photo was taken in Secondlife because that’s my playground. You could achieve the same thing in other virtual environments. (But SL’s the best!)

The key though is emotional attachment, if you form an emotional attachment to your avatar, what happens to your avatar triggers an emotional response for you. In this case the sensation of closeness to another human being, even if what your eyes are seeing is pixel people. In your head it’s a virtual “you”, the other person wants to share this moment with you and that is the point. This doesn’t work for some people I know that, they just see pixels on a screen and it triggers nothing, to me they’re missing out.

So come Valentines Day, (or any day you feel you need one) if you can’t be near someone for a Physical hug, come into SL and get a proper Virtual Hug.

I didn’t capture the hug I got that day, but it inspired me to write this, the picture above was taken at Second Life Book Club.

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