Perhaps my entry into a Second Life is too late or I haven't yet visited the right places because I have so far found my travels through it to be hauntingly unsettled. Compared to WOW (World of Warcraft) which is teaming with people on most of its servers, SL seems disturbingly underpopulated like I have arrived after some sort of major apocalypse has taken place. I find my lonely avatar walking (and sometimes flying) through empty virtual boroughs long abandoned by their creators, shopping concourses filled only with the echos of previous inhabitants and customers. I feel like Charlton Heston's Omega Man.
This is not to say I haven't met other people. There are the usual mix of degenerates one should expect from a fantasy world where you can be whatever you want, however, the smaller population makes the freaks shine like beacons. Do you know how hard it is to have a serious conversation with a man sized toucan, a purple and blue fairy(wings and all), and someone who was flopping around like a seizuring gothic zombie? I understand that this is exactly the place where someone can and should feel free to interact any way they want. Perhaps I have outgrown it just like I kicked my dependency on MMO's.
Not all my experiences have been bad in Second Life. I have managed to find a secluded tropical island very much like my favorite place in real life, Hawaii. The surf roars in and Hawaiian music, (streamed from a radio station on Oahu) fills my ears as I take in the view and just daydream about really being there. It relaxes me. Perhaps I have found a reason for my Second Life.
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