My foray into the world of Second Life was brief and so shall be this post. I downloaded the software this past summer after continuing to hear so much about it. I just wanted to experiment and to be left alone to go about my business. What I discovered was that people did not want to leave me alone. I found that in Second Life, people do not allow you to be a loner. Unlike real life, where for the most part, if you are just walking down the street or browsing in a store, most strangers will not stop you to chat or bump into you. I guess in second life, it’s hard to put on your “leave me alone–I’m not in the mood to socialize” body language or facial expression and people just assume that because you are in a virtual world, you want to hang out with them. My friend who does a lot of gaming complains about the same thing–that sometimes she just wants to go into the game and do some activities on her own, but that others don’t seem to understand that. Not that I don’t think that socializing on-line can be fun and have its value (I’ve certainly done my share), but as an introvert, I like my alone time too, even on-line. I should add that I was so annoyed with my experience that I didn’t even make it out of orientation island. Maybe one of these days I’ll have a go at it again and hope that people will let me be. Learning to fly is hard work!
Edited to add that I just signed on to get the above screen capture of my avatar and it is eerily quiet on orientation island. Maybe this would be a good time to resume my lessons. My avatar sure looks like she’s ready to fly.
