I inhabit a virtual universe called Second Life where you create a very life-like avatar, own land, create art, go to concerts, meet people from all over the world and have love affairs. I have been on the site since 2006. I feel like I really do have a Second Life. What’s strange is I can feel just as lonely in Second Life as I do in my First Life. Tonight when I came home I missed my deceased boyfriend, looked at my bleak email and facebook lists and then went on the website Second Life and had the same feelings.
My boyfriend and I used to each have avatars in Second Life. His avatar had marijuana wings and Jamaican dreadlock hair. He never really had the imagination to play as much as I do in Second Life, but we had some fun times together there and he met some of my friends there. He even met one of my boyfriends from Second Life in real life when he came to San Diego in his plane and we met him for lunch at the little airport near our house. My boyfriend used to be a pilot too.
The connections in cyberspace can make life feel less lonely too. It enables me to live alone and be creative and still have contact with other people in a quiet non intrusive way. People in real life tend to me messy and loud. It is nice to have friends in the computer who are there when you need them and quiet when you don’t.
The emotional attachments to other people’s avatars can be very real and intense. Meeting someone at a bar in Second Life or through online friends is just as exhilarating there as it is in real life. The sexual attraction to someone can be instantaneous or build over time. There is any kind of sensual pleasure you can imagine in Second Life. Some people choose to have avatars who are beautiful tigers that lay around in a pack and talk to each other, snooze and preen. I know lairs of dragons and clubs of Shemales. In Second Life there is an adult section, a teen part and a general part, but when I joined in 2006 everything was blended together.
Back in 2006, when I started, casinos were legal in Second Life and so many people were at those sites they would crash the sims. There are still plenty of game areas and there are simulated warrior battles too. There is a strong vampire community in Second Life and many Gorean based groups. The Steampunkers are an imaginative bunch and I love to play with the mermaids and explore their underwater sites.