No, not that kind.
I’m a really private person for the most part. I like to be left alone in quiet to do my work on SL, and work is what I log in to do. Every now and then I’ll hang out with my friend Akiko, but she (usually, haha) knows how to respect my space when I need it and let me get things done. As a shop owner, I’m sure I’m not alone in having met many chatty people when I’m in the store doing other things, and almost inevitably at the end of our talk, they want to be friends, and I’ll usually oblige. After that time, though, usually I never hear from them again. Not so with a small minority. If you’re up for reading a wall of text involving a minor drama regarding a Space Invader of the clingy stalker sort, please read on – I’m feeling kind of freaked and in need of perspective that isn’t that of the little social recluse that I am. (Sorry fashion planet, I see that apparently the More… break doesn’t work on the feed *sigh*)
One member of this chatty minority eventually got offlined by me. I am generally really non-confrontational and as much as Aki would like to call the offline button “the drama button” I think de-friending someone is more noticeable and bound to elicit comment, making me end up having to fess up that the person has annoyed the crap out of me to my wits’ end. Ahem. No, I’m not very diplomatic, either. :P
Anyway, many months passed and this person didn’t message me. After sending out a group notice last night she figured out I was online and the IMs started right back up – she seemed to take it as a challenge – that if I don’t want her to know when I am on, well then! She’ll just have to track me down and force me to hang out with her! O_o I wish I was exaggerating. After a minute or so of “how are you” type small talk, she asks if I am at the store (the usual obvious hint that if I happened to be, she would want to come over and have me be her captive audience again for a few hours while she shows me all her outfits, plays me all her gestures, tells me what I should and shouldn’t do with my store, and quizzes me on where to go for various things in SL *head explodes*) so I just (not thinking) said No, I’m at my workshop. Period. No hints that she was invited. MOST people would take this to mean “Oh, she’s working, doesn’t want to be disturbed, gotcha.” She goes, “Where’s your workshop?” with one of those mischievous smileys after it. A silent “NOOOOOOOOO” rang out in my head and, trying to remain nice but firm, just replied, “It’s my private place where I work.” Again. No invitation. A pretty blatant “You won’t be coming here” I would have thought. I quickly then said I had to go and eat (which was true – I also have some sort of guilt complex about excusing myself under false pretenses, so I was glad I’d left dinner late) and went offline.
When I came back, she’s passed me a folder with a picture of herself in my workshop on a project I was working on still, with a notecard saying “I think I found your workshop (mischievous smiley) Oops, I don’t think I was supposed to get this yet” and an item – which was now unusable to me because she’d bought the only copy and then transferred it back, making it no copy to me as well – that I’d had up there and set for sale for 0L but was, at the time, empty. Granted this item wasn’t a big deal to reproduce, but I’m sure had it not been empty it probably wouldn’t have been returned. I immediately got irate.
Why is this person, after being told the place was private, going out of her way to track down my private workplace and invade it, playing around in it and taking things that were obviously not set there for someone to take, being as they were in a PRIVATE place, and then sending me pictures of it? Given, this isn’t a super secret location or anything, it wouldn’t take much thought at all to find it, but I have never had anyone not have the decency to just leave it – and me – alone. I was angry enough that timid quiet little mouse that I am I even sent her back an offline message telling her that I was mad – and then kicked myself afterward because it STILL wasn’t at all assertive and I felt sure that if hearing a place was private wasn’t enough to deter her, neither would my displeasure. She didn’t even apologize.
Now, offlined or not, I basically have no escape from her if she wants to come back whenever. My husband immediately told me to just ban her, but I hate doing that – I always have this fear that if I’m not nice to someone they’ll go and tell all their friends about how not nice I am and no one will ever come to the shop again – I have a small enough following as it is. Instead Akiko gave me a security orb for the area, but I never trust those to really help. I’m just not sure what else to do. Am I just blowing things out of proportion here? Is it not really as creepy and freak-worthy as I am feeling? I know there is no privacy in SL, so am I just overreacting to the discovery and invasion of my sacred alone space? Has this happened to anyone else? I’d love some perspective here. :S
10 Comments
Ban her! Ban her on the premise that your overbearing husband says so… Fashcon Cafe should happily corroborate that your husband is a dick! ;)
Seriously though, that is creep level beyond creep level. I have run a community-driven website for years and never experienced anywhere near that level of freak. If she’s not completely off her rocker–which I would find hard to believe–she’s at very least completely devoid of social graces, seems to be pretty devoid of any taste (sorry lady, I watched you showing off your outfits), and I can’t imagine she’s the type that amasses a slew of friends–hence, no army of fashionistas should be after you with torches and pitchforks. There is no positive side to not-banning her, and you get your privacy back. BAN HER!
:D
P.S. I love your picture, love. :)
Hi, I’ve never met you and I don’t even know your shop, but I feel so bad for you that I will come and check it out now that I’ve read your story. And no, I won’t bother you, other than a quick “hi.” :-)
When you say you “offlined” her, do you mean you “muted” her? Coz if you did that, you would never even see her IMs I think. It worked for me when I muted a particularly creepy guy that tried to stalk me. And for the love of all that is holy, use a security orb AND also ban her from the sim. You don’t need customers like *that*! The nerve of her! Also, you should put up signs in your workshop saying “No Trespassers” and “Trespassers Will Be Banned.” Take a deep breath – you *can* have privacy in SL and still run your business. Good luck.
I respect being non-confrontational. There are times I purposefully wait for people to be offline before leaving them notecards and then immediately logging off myself. However, for your own comfort – and ultimately, the benefit of all your customers – you do need to take some firm steps. And you don’t just have to ban her.
First, if you cannot be assertive through IM, do write a notecard. State what has upset you, why it is unacceptable, what the boundaries are, and what will happen if the boundaries are crossed again. Yes, you need to be that specific, and not just for her- having this information laid out will give you support (or a kick in the pants) down the road if you need to take greater action. In this case, you need to say something like not only going to your private workspace without invitation was not respectful, but buying your work was very selfish – not only does it prevent you from doing your work efficiently, but it prevents the final product from coming out in a timely fashion for all customers. Your workspace is private so you can work in an environment without distractions or interruptions, and you need to feel comfortable in it; anyone coming in without invitation and taking things without permissions crushes that comfort level. In the future, she needs to respect your private areas – work or otherwise – and your items – work or personal – by not coming to/into them without clear invitation and not taking anything without clear permission. Something set to L$0 is not permission. If she breaches this or makes you uncomfortable in any other way, you will remove her from your friends list and ban her from the area. If she continues to harass you, you will mute her and report her to LL for harassment.
I believe also having up signs or other information stating that you need your privacy and what is and what is not acceptable from visitors, customers or friends may be helpful. I know what I have suggested may come off as harsh, but what this person has done is truly unacceptable socially and warrants a firm, professional response.
I guess I’m a hardass but this is beyond creepy. This girl is taking advantage of you. Mute her, cut her card, and ban her.
You are absolutely justified in taking every kind of action you mentioned but did not have the nerves to implement yet. Mute her, ban her, kick her off your friends list…
I can understand where you are coming from, being a very private and non-confrontational person myself. But in this case, I would echo those who commented here before and advise you to get over the bad feeling of openly “refusing” someone in order to protect your privacy. To me, it appears that this person not only has no sense of personal space/ borders in the broad sense, but also that she enjoys making you feel uncomfortable. That’s the only way I can explain this kind of behaviour to myself, and you shouldn’t suffer it just for the sake of a peace you won’t find with her anymore anyway.
Best of luck!
Yes, I’ve had this happen to me before. There is a group of people who seem to think nothing of barging into your workspace and interrupting you. I find it maddening. I have a HippoSecure security orb and I use it. It keeps people out.
Recently I had someone fly to my workspace and get booted several times. When I asked, politely, why they were in my skybox, they let loose a string of cusswords. So I muted them and banned them. Then their partner IMed me OUTRAGED that I dared to have a security orb “in my store” even tho it is nowhere near my store. So another mute/ban. I try to be super nice to people, but I do NOT have to put up with being cussed at.
And people just need to learn to stay out of your private space. If you called someone on the phone and they said they were in the bathroom, you wouldn’t go to their house and walk into their bathroom!!!
Thanks everyone for your own perspectives – I’m glad it’s not just my total reclusiveness throwing up false red flags. She did send me an apology just now and explained her presence there and while she’d have to be clueless to the point of… well, I don’t know, to have blundered as she says she did, I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt if she doesn’t come wandering back. In the meantime, I’ll leave the security thing in place, and perhaps some signs are in order – thanks for all of the advice!
Yes that is creepy and if someone invaded my private workshop space like that I wouldn’t hesitate to ban them. Your space, you let in who you want. I also have a security orb around my private workshop set to send home after 3 seconds. It’s worked so far :)
I feel bad for you, I also suffer from the problem of “if I am not nice to someone they will go tell all their friends and my SLife will be ruined, may as well go start an alt!”
But seriously! If she went to tell her friends that you got mad and banned her because she stalked you in your private workshop and took something she shouldn’t have, they would most likely say “and your problem is??”
I’m guessing what she did was stalk your blog and see all the comments. Whether the issue actually sunk in or not is another matter.