Many residents in SL say that they're here to make friends. Since the early days of the internet, virtual worlds were considered to be engines for isolation where one sits in a lonely room accompanied only by the deceptively warm flicker of the computer screen. Things have changed. The internet has developed, and social network sites have become the trend of the day. Cybersociality has brought us forth to believe that some of our best and closest friends are members of our electronic lives and one of its most surprising features is that it has created real online intimacy.
Numerous types of social relations can be found, from friends to husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, parent and child, teacher and student and employer and employee. If asked, any permanent SL resident would not show unawareness that all the above relations exist, but have we ever thought about how or to what extent these relationships are real. We have couples in SL, people who in real life have never met each other and may never meet. Their relationship is SL specific. Existing in SL only, does this type of relationship pass to actually being classified as a "couple" relationship in all its components. If yes, what would the effects be on the participants' RL relationships, and if no, what's the point of having it in the first place, or is it ok to have it if a participant is RL married for instance?
I was once talking to a newly found friend when I momentarily had a techie and lost connection to voice chat. She immediately asked me if my wife came into the room claiming that men usually "lose voice when their wives or girlfriends come into the room in RL". Although it made me laugh, it also had me thinking. So what if my wife came? So what if I was talking to a beautiful woman in SL? So what if I was even engaged in some sort of intimate activity? Would it matter? Should it matter? These are all questions that, I think, have been through every mind in Second Life. After all, the nature of the relationship lacks one of the important elements – the physical element. 
As my friend said, men tend to "lose voice" when their RL spouses come into the room or anywhere near the computer, or sometimes the screen is even minimized when the man is engaged in some sort of intimate activity. This obviously works both ways, as women act in the same way also. The point is that because this happens there is clearly some type of jealousy involved. So these types of relationships are taken quite seriously, by the participants and their RL partners. It has gone to the extent where marital problems have occurred and "fights" have broken out between partners, where the participant claims that "it is not real … being only on a screen and pixels", whereas the partner claims that the participants are mentally involved, therefore feelings are involved which justify the arousal of jealousy!
Other types of relationships are also significant and worth mentioning such as employer-employee relationships. The nature here is much clearer, as although the two parties may never meet in RL, but contracts are made, job descriptions and schedules are developed and salaries are paid which can actually be exchanged into RL currency. I personally know people who depend on SL in their RL income and take their work very seriously. There's nothing imaginative about these types of relationships.
Another rather clear social relation is that between teacher and student. Educational institutions can easily be found where one can see classroom settings, blackboards, and various types of teaching techniques. To learn, a student doesn’t have to be physically present in a classroom, he/she can learn just as much when SL present only. The education cycle is very simple, it consists of teacher/student/material. If all three exist, whether in a real-life classroom or in SL, the process of learning can be successful.
Family relationships such as father-son relationships also exist, where a couple gets married in SL, in a church, with a priest and guests and a wedding dress, wedding cake and the whole wedding package. After a period of marriage, the couple decides to have a baby, which costs money and comes with responsibilities. The baby is pure pixel with no real-life person behind those keys, but the SL parents have love for this so-called baby. They take care of him/her (it?) as if it was real, so how would this case be comprehended socially? To an observer it may be pure make believe or role-playing or whatever one would call it, but what about the baby's parents? Do they think it's make-believe?
Things brings us to the concept how seriously people take SL in the first place. I think that all the above discussed points relate back to how people deal with their SL. For many people it is just SL, i.e a game one can participate in on the net. But to others, it is in fact their "second life", being complementary to their RL and just as much a part of their life as any other everyday RL activity. Being very serious in the SLs, this type of people take their relationships seriously and commit to them, whereas to those people that take SL to be a mere game, everything is just make-believe and they are there to have fun. My advice to SL dwellers is to be careful and know who you are talking to in SL, and decide for yourselves whether SL is to be taken seriously or not. Don't assume everyone has the same opinion as you do, you might hurt people's feelings!
