The Awkwardness of RPing

[Wee Little]

Not sure if this belongs here but it technically is OOC smile

Anywho. I wanted to discuss the emotional involvement with RPing. Has anyone ever dealt with this? I was thinking about this since I was out of the RPing scene for a bit thanks to school and social obligations, and I was debating on where to go for my RPing. I've joined a few sites, but mostly I stick to Gaia as its usually the most PG-13. Anywhere else... you get a lot of people wanting to get into sexual and fetish-based stuff it seems.

But one thing I always noticed... are people getting too emotionally involved. I can understanding having pride in the story and characters you've created, but I feel getting emotionally attached to the characters, the RP, or even your RP partner(s) is a bit excessive.

I remember in one community I was a part of... it was a decent sized one. They even made a chatroom for the group. There was one person who as particularly popular with RPs. He had quality plots and nicely designed characters. So of course he was popular. But I swear everytime we were in the chatroom, this one girl would come in and start pestering him like some jealous girlfriend. "Hey [forgothisname]... I replied yesterday..." (a couple minutes later) "I see you're online. Think you could reply...?" (later) "So I see you got a story going on with [insertnamehere].... don't got time to reply to mine? sad " He'd try to sweetly explain he had quite a few RPs going at a time and he'd get to it as soon as he could. But every night, there she was.

I've had similar situations, but nothing as bad. I especially hate it when someone think that since their character has a bond with my character, that they have a bond with me sweatdrop

Has anyone else ever dealt with this? Kind of feeds into my theory that some RPers simply do it to fill a void in their life...  

[ZeldacatVampire]

Yeah.... x3 Actually because I kept a roleplay going for a year with someone, I ended up adding them on facebook. xD *Note that I was younger and stupider. However, it turned out pretty cool cause he was a legit person of the age he said to be who changes his photos very often so I assume it's not a fake account. He's foreign too so I ended up going from a roleplay to a few culture lessons. Hehe.

Secretly though, I fear that people I haven't responded to for awhile might not be happy when I reply to other roleplays more recently. Dunno why, just a really minor, insignificant thought.  

[I Be Athena]

^This. Because when a character responds unhappily, it's the character. Like some of my characters can be rude, but I really hope I'm not. But not responding... Well it's a way to show aggravation without going into a rage.

It's also really awkward when you join a roleplay... but it never starts. Especially if you put a lot of time and effort into the profile and whatnot.  

[Wee Little]

I can understand having an attachment to your characters and the story, especially if you've put a lot of effort into developing that store. I've really only had one RP partner who I was proud to be RP partners with. We've come up with some amazing stories that if I someday get the effort to write... will see about translating over into a book or something.

But I just hate the awkwardness when the person gets attached to you. I've been RPing with my current RP partner for 2 years and all I really know about him is his name, he's a history major, and he lives in Texas.