Second "Go Get A" Life

My initial welcome on Orientation Island in Second Life was revealing. The first thing that happened was I met somebody named Tyler, who asked me if I was real. I told him, "Unfortunately." He lol-ed and then departed after a few more of my witticisms, saying, "cu around." I knew, after that, that I would not have fun in this place trying to socialize, and therefore the best course of action would be to make fun of everyone to make myself feel better. So, after a mind-numbing exercise on Orientation Island about changing my appearance (if this game is so adult-minded, why on Earth do they treat everyone playing like an idiot? Rhetorical question, I know.) I teleported away.

Upon my arrival, I approached a large group of people who were talking in local chat. They were saying how they missed each other and other random conversational snippets. I interjected with, "I have the strongest desire to make fun of myself right now," to which people said "lol," and "can we help?" And then I proceeded to make fun of myself for playing second life, asking how I could ever stoop this low, pondering how long it would be until my parents kicked me out of their basement or until I got tail again. I promptly got everyone yelling at me, saying, "well, if that's your opinion, then why should we care?" and other such idiotic retorts that I swatted easily. These proletarians couldn't touch ME; I was God. I didn't play this game.

After tiring of their needless antagonism, buzzing on my chat feed like flies, I started flying. I enjoyed this aspect of the game, lifting up my character and dropping him down onto the concrete, to which he protested every time, flailing his arms every time he was dropped. The best was when I ran smack dab into a castle wall, apparently housing a society for "Mutants." Nobody was there. I guess the X-Men are fictional after all. Or at least, they're too cool for Second Life.

After flying, I teleported to another location, filled sparsely with people. Time was running out. I allowed myself to get pushed around by this one user, who kept being berated by another one for pushing people around. I started running through my memory of Carl Sagan quotes, to little response. Nobody was talking to me. Hmmm. And then I found somebody who said something strange; this user said, "Land, ho." Intrigued, I said hello, and wondered as to how conversations proceeded in this strange fictional place. He wondered the same thing, for he was new as well. Alas! I cried to myself. A fellow stranger in a strange land! But, a flaw in my plan: he may have been really trying to get into Second Life, instead of being forced into it like myself! So I tested the waters with, "Maybe I should just go back to what I was doing before Second Life, you know, crying alone on my bed in my room with the lights off while the ceiling fan beats back and forth and I rock back and forth in the fetal position, wishing, just wishing, for a way to end it all." He responded, "Yeah, I did that yesterday. You get over it quick." And then it was time to leave.

Perhaps...perhaps I had been wrong all along. Perhaps this land wasn't a land filled with idiotic overweight losers who had empty holes in their social lives that could only be filled by fictional relationships with people they would never meet. Perhaps there was an opportunity for real interaction with people that I didn't know. Perhaps in this escape I could find a reflection back to my own arrogant views about myself and about my life. Perhaps this virtual world is only a mirror to our own, the same but reversed, where losers "rule" and smart, passionate, good-looking, well-bred people like me "drool," and I could fill that empty gaping hole in my life where real social interaction should be.

Stupid game. If I wanted a fictional relationship with people, I'd just go to frat parties.