Second Life Addiction

O O i think i have a problem here.
Everything U just said is exactly the way my life is going right now even the dreams.
I even let it run in the background on some camping sim while i watch a movie or serie i like online.

I agree with you Chino. perhaps if i had more available time to play, i’ll be a SL addicted.
I only have time to be online and play about 1H30M per day, not more.
I would love to be more time online, but unfortunatelly i can’t, or fortunatelly, i mean…
My RL is always in first place and my family, too.

Lol, i may not have an addiction to sl but I do have an addiction to your blog

LOL…

Buaya, an addiction is an addiction, no matter what’s the reasons… it’s wrong to be addicted in anything… take care.

Well, my ‘addiction’ is a relative term, depending on how you see it. It can be positive or negative, depending on how it benefits a person on a social level.

For example, a person can spend hours in gym and that is not called an addiction, but merely an obsession while a gamer who spend hours playing games is immediately term as an addict.

See, there is a fine line there

Okay, but the term “addiction” is always linked about something bad, not good.

You are right… there is a thin line, indeed.

I Have uninstalled 2nd life 15 times hiding it in sub-files and going through “rituals” downloading it from zip files to spend 1hr while my spouse takes a shower. I can tell when the time is up and make sure that all files are deleted before I can hear the shower curtain rings slide across the bar.
The strange part is, I have have not really done much in my in-line experience, Ive only been there;
maybe I bought shoes or a new gun…Dont Know…
But I like it and it works 4 me….Did I mention,
I do it w/ a 56k modem, the lag makes it more exiciting.I have to log out and have a claen screen before he walks in. Owwww!
Love, M.G.

Thanks for the reminder. It just struck me that im having a second life addiction too:)

oh no canceled a vacation due to SL that my friend would be an addiction I do hope you can get past that there are wonderful tings to experience in RL too!

I am addicted. I faced the facts on 3/17/08 I was involved with another person in SL and wanted more. That was completely one sided. Once I realized I lost the boundary between SL and RL, I discovered I had a real problem. I was involved in my second SL relationship. This one looked more viable because of our close geographical locations. The person I was involved with was not interested in a relationship in RL. We would email each other daily in RL and then take our relationship to other levels in SL. I am experiencing major withdrawal symptoms and to top it off, I am missing my SL lover…I had property and a house and everything – I abandoned it all and cancelled my account. When I think of going back I get heart palipations and even start hyperventiating a little. The steps to go through downloading and installing the software causes me to pause and think about what I am doing. I hope that these withdrawal symptoms will get less with each passing minute….I am addicted and I have to not go back…it is way to easy to lose sight of reality. I am lonely and thought that I could fill that loneliness through SL, how wrong – discovered that the computer monitor cannot give me that human touch that I so desire…an addiction is so difficult to overcome…

i can totally understand this one, i myself am newly married of 2 months and i was put onto this game by a friend not knowing what i was in for i accepted sl and i 2 weeks i was aimlessly dancing with a hot half cat half woman whom i somehow became seduced by i pulled the plug yesterday i almost became as attached to my sl friend than my real life partner and it is extremely dangerous.I may have actually ended up hurting others feelings as well connections made in this game can be horribly strong as everything is based on beauty and sex appeal the way i see it if you arent ashamed to say you masturbate to a sim then its a good game for ya but if you feel this is not something healthy for a human whom needs a real functional realasonship then you must get away before damage is done.The thing that helped me was to talk to my sl friend and actually recieve a photo and see what their rl was about only then was the magical bubble broken and i was free, and after all this is still find myself thinking of a character in a game and missing it when it really wasnt real to begin with.

omg..i was really addicted..i dreamed about sl first thing i thought when i woke up was bout sl
my thoughts are in english even if its not my main language LOL

Tory’s Story

A note of Caution: If you are a Second Life user and are still a bit on shaky ground: this might not be a positive read. However, it might be just entertainment with no “triggers” at all. hehe WoW users will probably just scratch their heads and say – “huh?” LOL.

This is my story. Told through the eyes of a Second Life Avatar, Tory Micheline, a creature that evolved over a period of 3 + years, in the virtual world of Second Life which is a MMORPG. [Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game] She existed in the software and in the minds of some SL Puppeteers who also created Second Life Avatars, and of course – her creator.

I am writing this as a confession, a statement of fact for myself. It hopefully will clarify my thoughts, and provide another reason for me to NOT use Second Life ever again. It may guide an addictive gamer to hesitate and consider “Is this really a good idea?”

My thoughts about my game life are in bits and pieces all over this site. For the couple of folks who might be interested here is a compilation of sorts. This is Tory’s Story. Hehe.

Prior to my Second Life_ experience I had absolutely no interest in computer games. I had been a good student with a BA from Swarthmore and an MBA from Columbia. Computers were a tool only, I didn’t really even care about solitaire_ on Windows. Computer games were for geeks and guys that wanted to drive fake cars and shoot folks up or join the army and blow things up.

This attitude was even more put to the test when I joined a hedge fund in NYC and started trading commodities. My computer was a work tool, a necessary device to earn a living. Gaming was not an event I wanted, especially after a day interacting with “the Marketâ€_.

I had picked up a WIRED Magazine, I think about September or October 2006 and there was this article on Second Life. This looked so different. The people using the game were making the objects in the game. The scenery was unique, and modern the characters were beautiful and all the objects were programmed and created by the members of the community.

I logged on October 15, 2006 [ in Second Life your birthday or Rez date records WHEN you arrived ] and instantly realized I was computer wise_, and game wise_, WAY over my head. I stayed on Orientation Island for over 3 weeks [ most Second Lifer's breeze through in about 15 minutes to an hour ] I was frightened at what might be on the other side of Orientation Island. I never learned to fly very well and could barely make out this computer lingo.

During this time I was in SL for one half to an hour at a stretch, just trying to figure out how to fly, walk, change clothes and read other folks profiles. I was the perfect noob, without a clue on how to get around. This entire world built by people controlling these avatars was really amazing, each region was a server and all the servers hooked. You could fly to locations, teleport to various regions, find dancing clubs, hang on the beach, drive cars and motor bikes. Jeez, I was in wonderment and really having fun.

My first good friend was a lady from the UK who was so savy with the interface. She bought land and built a house and had piles of clothes, shapes, skins. Julia was my mentor, she always had time for me to ask questions- which I was VERY good at ! lol I’ve always been great at asking for help, and luckily I could touch type so I got some stuff figured out. I went shopping_ with her and the first item I purchased of value was an RH Engle diamond bracelet for $L250 which seemed like a fortune on my $L400 / week allowance. [The exchange rate has been $L260 = $1 USD for years]

Out the in the real world_ [real life] I just would watch TV with my boyfriend and do my Second Life on my iBook G4 using our wireless. He knew I was doing more than just the internet. I decided to “joinâ€_ the game and paid the $72 yearly free. I figured why pay by the month @ $9 when you could get savings by the year. [I should have guessed that I was buying into the software in a bigger way.] $6 per month for entertainment – Heck, I over tip in a week more than the monthly fee, living in Manhattan. I was living large with my hedge fund job, trading. My live in Boy Friend Jack and I had a nice place in Manhattan. He did finally ask me about Second Life and I showed him the interface, the way things worked and was frankly surprised that he wasn’t interested. He was more involved in sports as we continued on with our separate evening interests. With Jack’s understanding of what I was doing on the computer my Second Life time now ran ~ 2 hours / night. 8- 10 PM. We were in the same room, he watching sports and I learning the SL interface.

With my Premium membership in the game I now had the right to buy 512 m2 of land. The best part was I didn’t have to pay “tierâ€_ or tax as I see it on land smaller than 512 m2. The hunt was now on for LAND! I got out my trusty VISA [useful in RL and SL lol] and put $20.00 USD on my account. Converting it to the SL system I now was rich – 5200 L$. I got a scrap of land, 448 m2 actually. I proceeded to look for a modest house on the SL exchange.

Searching all of the houses I realized that I bought too small a land parcel. Everything was for 512 m2 or much larger. My lot was too small and had been subdivided off a 512 m2. In essence I had been land scammed. However, I was more determined and started to IM [instant message] various builders to see if one would like to custom build to size for my lot. I found a fellow from the UK who was interested. And that began my time zone problems. Here I was in the eastern US time zone. Theo was in the UK and 6 hours ahead. We could talk via email during the day, then I would RACE home after work and meet him in the Second Life. It would be very late for him.

It was during this time in the game_ that I established that I would NOT divulge personal information. My profile said: The Avatar is everything, the Puppeteer is nothing. If guys would press me I would say “This is NOT Match.com_ That philosophy worked well and 98% of the Avatars would accept me on those terms. The few that demanded personal information I would not friend_ and did not communicate with. I did not try to figure out who was behind the avatar_, but only how the Avatar looked and acted.

During this time I found I just didn’t have enough time in my usual 8 PM 10 PM Second Life day to get everything I needed to do. I would go to bed with Jack ~ 10 pm and wait until I heard him fall asleep. I would then get up, log into my Second Life and do stuff for about an hour, sneaking back under the covers. It wasn’t every night. I would give this advice anyone: Do NOT use a MMOG during off hours_. You might make friends, meet others, during the off hours, then they never find you again. I once told an avi that when I get rich and famous I would move to the UK. Seems like many of my AVI friends were in that time zone.

My region or sim_ had lots of small land owners, as it had been sold in little plots of land. We had one guy who was nuts about planting trees. He had purchased about 1/2 of the sim and had a copyable pine tree which he covered all his land with. It made for a scenic area. One of his tree branches was poking through the wall of my house. [ see how totally stupid this sounds, how totally insignificant this event is? ] Well, when you have a house on a 448 m2 plot everything is so important. LOL I sent him an IM [instant message] and the next day he appeared and moved the tree out of the way for me. That is when I realized that soft spoken polite conversation works just as well in SL as RL. A big land owner had helped me out_ Life was good, I had a custom house, and had some low prim furniture made by a lady up the hill. I was sticking pretty much in the sim [simulator or region of land] visiting with neighbors a homebody. The fellow with the trees “ Babba was a good friend and we became close, and without a sexual relationship.

Tory was very stubborn in some ways. She refused to buy prim hair [fancy hair made by an expert.] In this way she always looked more like a noobie than a seasoned SL resident. And she often saved her allowance from her Premium membership – 400 L$ / week. [ basically the exchange was 260 L$ = 1 USD ] Other avatars I knew had purchased land above the 512 m2 amount and had tier or tax due to the company, the Linden Lab. You could easily spend $25 – $50 USD per month. The more land you had the more primitives [building blocks] you could use. I was always a LOW prim girl with simple houses, furniture and objects on my land. It was harder to go low prim but with careful shopping and construction you could do it. The main reason was lowering expenses. The major expense in SL was land, which gave you prims which gave you the ability to build and create houses, and objects.

Of course there are the guys in Second Life. Seems that nearly every guy you meet in the SL was making a serious move to get in my pants OR a serious play to show how nice, polite and nifty. I didn’t see much middle ground. So a lot of my friends are ladies, and they are really quite tech savy. [ again, I reacted to the behavior of the Avatar and didn't try to double / triple guess: Was that a guy wearing a female shape? ] I based my interaction on how the Avatar acted, was the Avatar polite, interesting. The Cursing folks didn’t make it to my friends list. Again, the puppeteer means nothing! One woman living near by was a Real Life artist, and was always creating unusual digital art. I bought a couple pieces from her and used them in my home. Alizarin was totally mature about her Second Life, although she did go out with me on occasion to sail.

Second Life was now starting to INTRUDE into my Real Life.. I had a couple of friends in SL and we exchanged google email addresses. These were avatar email address not RL emails. When I was working on a project like my house, I found it worthwhile to have email conversations prior to meeting in SL. That could be a problem at work, with gmail conversations going on, and then with CHAT happening– Oh that was not good. I had to cut it out as my boss would come by and I would have to change screens, quickly. I also became paranoid that the systems guys would see my internet records and become aware that I wasn’t always trading. Although the trading day was the time I could leave, we always would stay, do research, clean up our desks and get organized for the next day. I started to leave on the dot rather than stay with the rest of the traders, in order to get my subway ride to my computer and my Second Life. Naturally I had to make up excuses. Second Life was putting itself in front of my Real Life. And I was letting it…

Along the way, Tory became older_ with other folks entering SL who actually knew less that I did. It seemed amazing, but just time in the software was taking its toll, and I was learning more. I met “Rocâ€_ who was a noob but OMG was he a fast study. Giving someone their first profile picture could take 10 minutes or might never happen after 30. With Roc it was a quick 5 minutes and he knew exactly what was going on. We became friends and a long way down the road, lovers. Always patient, always courteous and a true gentleman we exchanged SL pictures and shared a bit more RL that I had with any others. It turned out he was a pilot and had lots of time to work on his Second Life during layovers. He remembered birthdays, [Second Life Birthdays hehe] gave me little gifts and actually moved in next door in the Sim I lived in, to a plot of land adjacent. I did cry a tear or two when we parted at the end of my Life in Second Life. One of the best guys for sure.

As I collected what I call “my allowance_ from Second Life I realized that since it was “all about the avatar_ I needed to improve mine. The basic elements are body shape_, skin_, and hair_. You can fool with all this yourself or go to the professionals. My friend Julia once said she counted up her Hair_ or wigs and had over 100! Julia had some real cash invested, in the software and was paying out ~ 50 USD plus the UK VAT on her land which was Linden protected water. [this was land that went to an Ocean and that no one could build on to block your access. Very hard to get and if you could get it -- VERY expensive. Land in Second Life is all owned by the Linden Lab but is bought and sold among the players, or residents.

I was still using my free tiered land, paying my $6 USD / month and collecting my 400 L$ per week. I did drop some VISA money into the account from time to time. Looking back I had 4 years of membership @ $288 and misc expenses for a total of $632 over my 3 years and 7 months in Second Life. That was supporting 4 Avatars. I never did try to workâ€_ in Second Life. I knew a lot of folks that did, but I never thought it would be good to attempt to make money as the software was an entertainment not work for me.

And oh, the software It was so marvelous. When you log on you can see who of your friends are online at that moment. You can set you destinations in a list and teleport to these locations. Groups you are a member of can notify you_ instantly that there is a party, a dance, a regatta or a motor bike rally and send you the Land Mark and then you can instantly go there. All the accounting and money transactions were handled better than a bank with total accuracy. Part of my amazement resulted from this being my FIRST GAME exposure. I had never seen anything like it. Every log in might be a different experience with different people and scenes.

I seemed to be able to hang_ with almost any group. I joined a Motorcycle Gang [ Outlaws World MC ] purchased a White Harley which could run the roads of Second Life. Some folks bought huge sections of land and set up tracks for motorcycle riders. I avoided tattoos, hated them in real life, but the gang members had sources and look very Hells Angels in style. I made my own group to keep track of all the little parcels of land in our sim [region] I kept track of sellers and buyers and the comings and goings of the area. Most of the land was covered by trees so this hobby didn’t really take much time. Lol

And then- The ALTS arrived. If you didn’t have enough dealing with one Avatar, Second Life would let you make another. So I made a guy avatar. This was a bit weird but I did the opposite with my Male Avatar. I didn’t try to make him attractive. First, he was not a muscle bound type, really tall and all pumped up, looking for ladies. Instead, Tor, was a thin guy, with a bit of facial hair, goatee, and mustache, and he wore some kakis, desert boots, button down collar shirt and with a sportcoat. Kind of preppy actually. Tor didn’t have much success out in Second Life attracting friends, he was just a bit too geeky. Still, Tor could go out and Tory would see what SL looked like from a Guys point of view. It was interesting to see how guys acted, what they said to each other. He was a Tor_ but didn’t have many on his friends list. [oh, I did get him a free private party_ but he never did get a chance to use it! ] Hehe. In Second Life men have to buy or acquire_ their privates and there is a large market for this.

At some point later on I felt the need to have a female alt. Just to be a bit wilder, a bit more free. In the process of doing it I made a couple of typos and created Nicki and Niki. I worked on Nicki a lot but left Niki on Orientation Island. Nicki was out looking for guys mostly and while sailing in her string bikini in her custom sailboat metthe one_. Dernial was so technical, he knew so much about Photoshop and the ins and outs of Second life. He was older_ but also had just tons of digital experience. On our first sail together he actually fabricated, designed and put a new mainsail on my boat. Wow – I was heads over heels about this guy.

Prior to Dern and after getting my house fabricated by Theo I heard about sailing in Second Life. In my Real Life, Jack and I were active small boat sailors and members of a local sailing club. Theo had done some homework and dropped me a LM [landmark a location] for the Mowry Bay Yacht Club. I clicked my mouse and there I was! Teleporting is such a great feature! No other avatars were there so I walked around the club and checked it out. A small weathered grey building was at the waters edge, with a couple of Takos [small one design sailboats] on the docks nearby. By editing a few objects I could tell who’s land it was and who had made the buildings. Then I saw it on the water: There was a starting line for racing! OMG. I just couldn’t believe it. I made sure that I had made another LM for myself and headed back to Huntsman, my home in the woods. To have sailing in SL would be awesome, to race sail boats would be totally cool. As it turned out, the owner of MBYC was an old_ avatar, circa 2004. One night I decided go over and see if anyone was there. A nice crowd of older Avatars [anyone older than me was old ! hehe] were sitting around talking, joking and telling tall tales. This was all in chat_ which was another nifty feature of the software. You could hear everyone. In IM it was a private conversation. No matter where in the world people were they could talk via text and the darn computers and servers worked. Of course, Tory, was easily amazed by this.

As things worked out, I got to know the owner of the MBYC- Saxxon and helped to organize some races in the Bay. This all over a period of months. I was a member of the MBYC group and later was given permissions in the group to send announcements to the group. But to backtrack a bit: When I got my boat and read the directions the note card_ that comes with the object, I said: Holy cow, this is going to be really hard_ but I got the hang of it to a degree. The MBYC had some races and I participated, but did really poorly. It was frustrating, being good at RL sailing but awful in the computer environment. It was strange because I was a better sailor in Real Life than in Second Life.

Folks found out I knew about RL Yacht Racing_ and it was a matter of a few weeks until I became a Race Director_ running the races out of Mowry Bay. Until this time I never had an actual required time to be in my Second Life. Now it was every Tuesday @ 5:00 PM SLT [second life time] which is based on Pacific Time. I’d told Jack that I was running races, which he thought was totally LAME but it didn’t really didn’t matter to him. Dinner would be over on Tuesdays by 8:00 so that I could run the races at Mowry.

For many months I ran as two Avatars, Tory and Nicki. Most of my my time was spent as Nicki hanging around with Dernial, Motorbike riding, sailing, dancing and generally just smooching. Of course there was the SL exploring but lots of smooching. Dernial had made a very nifty skybox [house in the sky] and he had furnished it with internet stereos, a TV, a hot tub and a sex bed. Like I mentioned the folks behind these avatars are smart, do computer programming, photoshop and can build working sailboats, motorcycles, flying carpets and fabulous clothing. All for sale with Linden dollars. To give you an idea: a top drawer Sailboat might be $2500L, a motorcycle $2000L with a fancy ballroom gown going for $500L. If you wanted a device to tell you via an email address who has visited your land you can get it for $400L. As Tory I was the only Premium account, all my other Avatars were basic accounts and Tory would send them L$ as they needed it.

I needed an excuse for Tuesdays when I would switch over to Tory. I told Dern that I was being required by my work to take clients out to dinner on Tuesday nights. It was somewhat plausible as the market had tanked and returns for investors were very low especially for a hedge fund. I said that investors like listening to me a trader rather than a salesman. Dernial was flexible and needed a night off anyway. We were so much in love [well our avatars were, I don't know we never exchanged too much info on real lives and we didn't exchange RL photos or any of that nonsense. We were idealized avatars, enjoying our second life.

I went to the trouble of looking up restaurants on the internet that I went to and sending their websites to Dernial. We would email from work to each other during the day I always was in a panic that the IT guys would figure it out track my email and discover what I was doing.

I actually brought in my iBook G4 into work a number of times and would access the wireless to jump into Second Life. NOW that was some real self created paranoia! The Second Life had almost completely taken over my life: I was doing Second Life at work!!! Jeez! Risking a nice trading job for a virtual reality yikes!

Fortunately, SL upgraded its software and the Mac OS 10.3 was useless. I could use my iMac at home, but the iBook portable was not SL compatable. I was saved from loss of career by an Upgrade- whew.

I was getting pretty good at running races, sometimes I would REZ [create] a boat and sail with the fleet, finishing W A Y back or maybe almost in the rear of the group. One fellow who actually won a major multi regatta contest Armchair_ tried to help me by getting all the software controls made to react to the F_ keys. Like I have said many of the avatars had stone cold smart Puppeteers running them. I wasn’t one of them LOL

Having done both racing and cruising in RL I decided one night to have a cruise. There were 8 of us and I just said: Let’s sail as far NORTH as we can until we run out of water [the servers that made the water were set up by the Linden Lab] and then return to the Docks of Mowry Bay. NOT a RACE! And we took off. It was fun, One fellow who was really smart on all this Manul, sent me a message and said he liked this and wanted to do more. We set up a friendship and started running cruises. I made a group Mowry Bay Cruising Club and we set out notices with charts of where to cruise. He had been cruising for a long time and knew the routes. Manul was also a total expert in Photoshop. He was German and felt his English wasn’t excellent so I wrote the note cards and attached his maps- charts, made with photoshop and of excellent quality. While many groups were sailing round the buoys races the MBCC was the only one in SL doing the cruises. We would set out, sail, help folks who were lost, and get everyone to the destination, where there would be a dance. It was a hoot and the SL sailors liked it. It was not competive, social and a total adventure as we would run into BAN LINES, simulator water that wasn’t working. We didn’t need to have land, to have a club house, but were vagabonds: Teleport to the start, rezz your boat, get crew and cruise. Our moto was: No one left at the dockâ€_ and we never did leave anyone.

This went on every week for over a year. We never missed. Every Tuesday at 5:00 PM SLT Manual and I would run a cruise. Our group grew from 8 to nearly 200. We would ask for invitations to various marinas and Yacht Clubs and would receive invites from folks wanting to promote their club.

It was a lot of work but a lot of fun. As you would expect there was drama_ within the sailors. I would deflect nonsense being a level keeled_ sort of girl, hehe.

Then Manul had enough, he didn’t need the social aspect of the cruise and wanted to build more of his own boats. [building boats in SL is as hard as in RL - VERY !] He told me about it and we decided that was for the best. I was ZIP on photoshop and couldn’t make the charts but I tried a couple and they were awful. I turned the group over to a fellow but he was actually unstable and I had to look elsewhere. I went into the group and found some quality folks I did nothing and let the group flounder for 2 weeks. Some of the quality people rose to the challenge and started the cruising back. Its still goes on today on Tuesday nights @ 5 PM SLT. There is another cruise on Sundays @ 2 PM SLT for the Europeans.

Then a Major RL / SL conflict arose ! The television show L O S T was restarting on Tuesdays in the exact time slot as the Mowry Cruise. I would have to choose. I chose the L O S T show, with some help from Jack. I had never done a Sunday cruise so that wasn’t a conflict, even though those cruises were more popular. So I just let ” L O S T ” the show take over that time slot. The show was great and the cruises continued without the two original leaders.

I felt weird about leaving the Cruising Club but in a way I felt it was time to see if it could run on its own. With Manul gone, and I being quite unable to deal with the photoshop chart making, and Jack being more and more insistent about me moving away from all the time spent in the software. It was a good thing.

Dernial was on a different time zone, and had been from the get go, and was becoming less and less interested in doing stuff like I wanted. He had been doing some DJ work at a club but then the owners of the club had been giving him a hard time. His Club time started at 10:00 EST which was when I went to bed. He almost seemed depressed in RL which I couldn’t help with. I wasn’t a counselor and it was difficult. We drifted and finally he left SL, he was starting his own business in RL. One of the few people in SL who I can say was not addicted, but came and go as he pleased.

I could go on about the many close friends that Tory, Nicky and Niki had and the good times. I did not do drama_ in my Second Life and when people got nasty just deleted them.

I did move out of my Wooded little plot during year 2. I spent hours and hours searching maps, teleporting to find protected water that was only 512 m2. There was a LOT of waterfront and protected waterfront huge plots and the tier_ or tax on it was something I didn’t want to get involved with. I finally found it. It was in Nuclear Sim, a nice 512 m2 which was to the farthest West in continuous water connecting the Blake Sea. [ I could go on but this was a very nice spot ] It had been picked up by a land broker and was offered at 10,888 L$. I remember that amount easily as I was uncertain about spending that much money $ 42.00 USD on a spot of pixie dust in a server owned by Linden Labs. I bought it with some sort of justification being no tax, I could sell it later, and it would be a great place for the MBCC. In fact I did name it: MBCC Outpost. I had a lot of fun with it and its load of 117 prims. A lot of people helped me Julia made the docks, the flags and furniture were made by friends. Another friend gave me a internet radio set up and I bought a couple of palm trees. We had some great cruises to and from there. I actually made some inroads into the Linden management and they set up a REZ ZONE
[a location in the water with special rights so others can create_ their boats there] That was really cool as members could come to the docks have a beer, [yes there were beers on ice, made by an Avatar] fly out to the rez zone, rez up their boats and head east for a very very long sail. Hey, it was a lot of fun. Initially I saved out 65 prims so I could keep a couple of boats on the docks and I kept the permissions on the land so that anyone could dock and hang out. I had a little device under water by the docks that would keep track of all the Avatars that came by. Most had been visiting a freebie place next door built and maintained by Rob. Manul made a nice map that I hung up so folks would see the rez zone.

There was no living area on the docks so I built a skybox using _ of the home I had in Huntsman. I took the boat prims and funished it and placed it 3000 meters in the sky. It was very private! Hehe By maxing out the prims on the land there was no danger of anything happening by griefers or visitors. MBCC Outpost was nicely furnished, established on the sailing circuit and doing what I wanted it to be an Outpost_ for the Mowry Bay Cruising Club.

So Tory — What went wrong?!, I hear the readers say. In Second Life almost nothing Roc found another woman and started hanging out with her, and later partnered_ with her. That was a bit of a shock, but he handled it so well that I couldn’t really hold it against him. Roc was inworld a lot more that I was and found other things to do and other people to hang out with. He also was more interested in the building. A super guy and one great Avatar. The sailing had been put on hold. The MBCC was still active, still thriving and still operating with a lot of energy. I had stepped back.

How did I leave: A model not to follow. LOL The arguments between Jack and myself continued. I was sneaking time in Second Life and it was not working out. I was unable to moderate my time yet feeling more and more left out of my Second Life. I had completed my Avatar, had enough clothes to last a lifetime, and enough custom sailboats and motorbikes. Nicki had her boat and motorbike, had totally foxed out skin, hair and shape and was able to entice any male giving enough time. Niki had come into her own enjoyed some extended friendships and enjoyed the limited SL that her puppeteer could provide. Perhaps I was just spread a bit too thin. ROFLMAO!

I realized that I had to get out. I had to quit my Second Life. It had become my first life, my waking thoughts were running with Second Life events. My list of “to doâ€_ items for SL were much longer than my Real Life lists. Jack was giving ultimatums: Do you want to live with Tory or live with me?_ My answer was With You_ and I knew I had to leave my Second Life.

I googled the internet for Second Life Addiction_ and came up with olganon.org The folks on the site had it figured out. I messed up my exit a bit from SL. I abandoned my land, rather than set it for sale which would have taken more time. I abandoned my other alts [yes, there were more than Tory, Nicki, Niki, and Tor !!] and set things into motion. I never did delete any items from inventory. My four avatars are still in the SL software ready to be activated. I left the software on the computer but took the desktop icon off. I downgraded my Membership of Tory to a Free account. Since I had paid my membership to November 15 I was entitled to collect the allowance. In fact the company insisted. It was approximately 9600 L$ which will turn out to be ~ $37.00 USD, nearly the price I paid for my Linden protected land. I will move that to my Pay Pal account at the end.

Today [ Sept 28, 2010 ]I will be out of my Second Life for 131 Days. I don’t have the feeling that I will go and activate any of my avatars. It would be great to be able to go in for an hour, look around and then exit for another 131 days. I know myself though, it wouldn’t work like that. Tory would be sailing with her Club, Nicki would be hooking up with one of her BF’s or riding her Motorbike and Niki might just be teleporting from place to place. But ultimately, although it would be fun, it would just be some lost time from Real Life with nothing to show. I left my Second Life on May 20th, not because I wanted to but because I had to. It was the best thing I have done. I apologize if in reading this you thought there would be more RL drama, more falling into the pit, more messy RL events.

But this was the way it happened.

-Tory
tory.olganon@gmail.com