......I don't even know how to follow up a question like that. But Second Life has made me somewhat wishful of a real second life. The first life sucked, though, so I'm rather hesitant about going out in the world and trying again. Not that I'd even know how.

It's great, well except for death.

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: hell yes.

I tried once an internet-based second life and it just got me more and more depressed.
You probably aren't going to believe me, but a real life is many times more fun and interesting.
It's much harder to have, though. You gotta be willing to work for it.

Yes, you should give it another shot. I'm not going to say you won't find disappointments and worthless people that try to cut you down along the way, but you gotta remember, that's part of life. Good things don't come without challenges. Expecting things to be easy is to be playing the fool. Just give some people a chance, but don't be blind to what's happening in front of you. You control your own destiny with people in life, so play by your own rules.

I know what you are asking but I think the way you are phrasing it is not going to give you a useful answer.

There is only one life which is only necessary as long as you are alive. There is no such thing as a second life either real or virtually.

When you are playing a game like Second Life you are actually in real life spending your time playing a game which may or may not lead to transcendance, but it is still all part of your single life. Your single life would include work or school, family, friends, gaming, etc.

The question I think you should ask yourself is if you are happy (or content) with the only life you have as it is presently. If so, there is no reason that you need to change it and if not, ask yourself why you are not changing it and then evaluate if that is itself reason enough to not change it. If it is not a good reason then I would invite you to consider your unhappiness or frustration, recognize that you are enabling this unhappiness or frustration without good reason, and then maybe get mad at yourself for doing so. Otherwise probably nothing will change.

But don't be confused by the notion that there is such a thing as "having a life" that is exclusive to only a subset of the population. There is no set way that life must be. We are born, we question why we are here, we die without ever finding the answer. If you can at least recognize that along the way, you may enjoy the only life you'll apparently ever have.

Well, okay, metaphorically speaking, my first attempt at life ended with school, and I hid myself from the real world as best as one can. For eight years. Now I want to try again, and I'll basically be starting from scratch, so to speak.

And I can hardly say that sitting in front of a computer screen all these years counts as "real life". The internet is not the real world, and I'm not really interacting with what is the real world. Technically, yeah, the people on the other side of the screen are real, but this interaction is done in a way that removes everything that makes reality outside my home reality. So to me, it doesn't count.

I'm sorry if this is one of those times where you don't want me to respond. Hopefully, you will welcome this reply.

When I refer to a single real life I myself am not attempting to be nitpicky just for the sake of it. I believe that you genuinelly will have a hard time ever achieving a "real life" if you treat it as a kind of highter level than the life you have previously been experiencing. After all you have said things like you are hesitant about going out in the world again, not that you'd even know how, and that you would be starting basically from scratch.

I am saying, give yourself more credit. You are already in the real world, you have always been there and you have never left. Now maybe you have not tried to occupy your time with endeavors that you consider to be valuable to yourself, but along the way you have gained at least some experience doing whatever it is you have been doing for eight years. Just about all of it can be made useful to yourself if you have the right perspective.

But this all depends on what you consider to be the "real word" or having a "real life".

All of us have friends online and offline, most of us have family we can turn to and most of us have either school or work where we take on responsibilites. There is something to be said for all of that.

I think it more useful to ask yourself simply what is particularly lacking. If you say "a real life" you'll unlikely be able to define what you need in terms that are relevant specifically to your own self. You will be going for some external notion, dream, or idea that may not be relevant to you. Your 'avoidance' of the 'real world" may be an indicator that deep down you do not value it as much as you think you should or that you are disrespecting what you actually do value (computer interaction, gaming, fantasy) more than you should possibly due to external pressure. If you simply embrace who you are and what you value than that is of great worth. Again, don't sell yourself or your interests short.

But I understand you are beginning to feel a compulsion to make a change, so I hope that you will figure out what you need and go for it. I fully believe that you can and I wish you all the best.

I don't have any friends offline. Unless you count the short period of time that we call MagCon.

Well if you want friends, they are out there and there is no set way to get them but you can.

Online or offline... a friend is a friend. I don't like drawing lines between them like that.

You can only do so much with online friends.

But does that make them less of a friend? I have friends online that are better than some IRL friends I have/had.

No, of course not. But I really feel like I'm missing out.

You are, honestly.
(I only reply like this because I've been there.)



I really admire this. How much commitment are you willing to put in this?

Probably not enough. I have a really hard time getting going, with anything. So I've got a lot to prove to myself.

I think it's necessary, since it's... well... the main one.
Anyway, I find both my online and offline lives pretty unsatisfactory at the moment.

Back in the day I may not have valued online friends that much. Now I think they are very beneficial. I really think it is best to have both. But to me for sure (and I do suggest for everyone) it is still probably more important to have offline friends. People simply need that in person contact for at least two reasons. Physical contact is very important to who we are. You need to be able to touch your male friend's shoulder or give your female friend's a deep hug, and you need to look them in the eyes, hear their voice and have them look in your eyes and hear your voice. The other reason is offline friends helps you socially interact outside of the house, in a sense on the stage of the public. One might say that online forums are public but they are not really public in that they do not have disinterested observers...like the random witnesses vital to testifying to the presence of your life in a given moment. I don't know why that is so necessary to our affirmation but whether we are here by God or evolution, it is our nature I think.

EDIT: Flipping through the radio I end up on "With a Little Help from My Friends" by the Beatles.

I do agree with Bo that physical interaction is important. It's always fun to punch someone in the shoulder after a smart ass remark or after getting pwned by him in a game or something. Or getting a group together to go eat somewhere, ect... But I think that our lot in life is that we are given what we are given. You could change that if you really had the mindset to, but most the time people don't. Personally, I have more online friends then IRL friends (I really had using that terminology though because online friends are real too)... but I don't that ratio being the way it is.

Try jumping on live with us sometime, Dray. Remember how we were having a blast playing Brawl at Magcon last year, that's what it's like all the time. Also verbally speaking really helps too, I think. The guys and I have also exchanged phone numbers and keep in touch via text throughout the day or when we want to try and meet up that night for some gaming. It may not be in person, but it's a lot more immersive than posting. But ultimately, I've learned to be happy with the friends I have reguardless of what format I have come to know them.

Actually, speaking of music... the first thing that comes to mind is Sister Hazel's song Change Your Mind.

That would cover a few games.

Well, here's the thing... we don't even play the same game when we are in a party a good bit of the time. I remember I was playing Trials HD while Ix was playing Magic the Gathering: Plainswalkers, ShadowFox was playing Tales of Vesperia, and Insultobot was playing Battlefield 1943. There had been a few times when we just wanted to chill and talk even when we weren't playing a game on the Xbox.