Virtual Stranger in a Strange Virtual World

I am in a coffee shop in Middlesbrough, Nero’s to be precise. 

It’s a nice atmosphere. I like to sit, rest my head back and listen-in to conversations and watch people come and go. I live on my own (after being married for 26 years, a whole other story) and so I like to have some kind of environment around me rather than sitting on my own in my flat.

I am listening to 4 conversations, none of which are in English. I guess a couple of them are in Polish, one in Arabic and one lady Italian. I can’t understand the conversations but the background jabber compliments the taste of the coffee as I sip it and scroll through Facebook.

Most of the people are older – don’t get me wrong, there are some younger people here but the vast majority are of retirement age, mothers with children or office workers nipping in for a quick coffee.

Everyone is polite – they seem nice – but I have no way of knowing if that’s true because no-one talks to anybody else unless they come in with someone. 

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it is me that starts any kind of conversation. 

I have VR at home and last night I went into a social app, VR Chat to be precise.

I chose a room, it had a nice atmosphere. I like to sit in there, rest my head back, listen to the sound of the virtual rain gently splattering on the patio, listen-in to conversations and watch people come and go. I like to have some kind of environment around me when I am sat in the flat on my own.

I listened to lots of conversations, almost all of them in English, I guess some of the people were Italian, one was French, some sounded Nordic and a few were Americans. I could understand all of the conversations and it made me chuckle how whimsical most of the them were. 

Most people seemed young, under 25 I’d say. They express themselves through their avatars. In a virtual world you get to pick what you look like. There are a lot of anime characters here, a naked buffed up Putin, a giant mech, an arse on legs and lots more.

Everyone is polite, they seem nice, and I am pretty sure I am right because as I sat there minding my own business on the bench a frog came over, sat next to me and asked me about my life.  He was followed by a gaggle of characters, all strangers to each other and too strange in appearance for me to describe, who all engaged in conversation with me – together – about anything and nothing.

Out of all the conversations I had I didn’t start a single one of them.