Just wanted to say goodbye :3

Yes, as some of you know by reading my last thread or talking to me online I am quitting due to I don't wish to spoil my friends enjoyment of time just because I am 15 and playing on Main Grid, while being much more mature then some of the players on it already.

This is just a official goodbye to anyone I knew ^.^
And just so you all know, I am a male, so you can say as you wish. I never told you I was female someone else did :3 Even though they knew *laughs*

Welp, i'm off of here until I am eighteen, hopefully then i'll see a more mature population then 25% of SL players being the only ones that are mature and nice :3

You can always join the teen grid.

On the other hand. Don't believe you are the only minor on the main grid.
From a lot of people I wonder if they really are 18+ or just a 12 year old. They just keep posing as adults. Their way of speech is usually giving away their immaturity.

That may be correct but it doesn't make it OK for other under 18s to join up and merely conceal their real age, however maturely they can behave.

@ Buring: I read your other post. You do seem to have a mature attitude for 15 which is great to see, and I completely understand your disappointment. However, try also to see this from the legal aspects for everyone. LL have to think of their own position in this respect, as well as that of the adult residents on the main Grid.

SL isn't really a game in the accepted sense, as you've seen. It's more of a creative environment with a lot of social interaction, and human nature being what it is, it's all too easy to become closely, even romantically involved with the friends you can make here.

It might not be something you'd personally go looking for atm, but think how it would be if any under 18 teen and someone quite a bit older than themself did get involved romantically and/or sexually.

Even if they viewed it as "just a game" and they had no knowledge of the younger one's real age, it could quite possibly have *very* serious RL implications if any relationship was found out - up to and including police investigations and possible criminal prosecution, with all the fallout that would involve for life, family, job prospects etc etc.

This is one reason adults want to make sure under 18s aren't using the Main Grid. It's not just to spoil your fun, or prevent griefing by the immature element. As you rightly point out we have enough like that who *are* supposed to be grown-ups!

I have no idea what the Teen Grid is like, but you sound as though you'd be a great asset there. You could even make it a goal to improve the place for your peers. Whatever you do, have fun, stay safe and good luck.

--
Aes

looking around the grid, I would NEVER want my teenager to be here.

I have known teens who act very mature, but on the other hand I have seen some 'adults' in world whose behavior seriously leads me to question their real age.

I thought I was mature at 15 too.

Heck, I thought I was mature at 9.

18+ for SL is kinda dumb anyway.

I agree. 21 would probably be better.

is it? As a (well) over-30 adult first coming here (and not sheltered by any means) I was a little shell shocked by some of the blatant displays of pornography that hit me full in the face once I started to tp around the grid. I'm not a prude, I like to think I've been around (a little), I enjoyed my young adulthood in the days before AIDS (sex and drugs and rock and roll woooo!). And still I was taken aback a bit. I quickly learned to look past it into the 'deeper' aspects of Second Life...but as a giggling schoolgirl would I have been able to do that?

We all think we are 'grown' and ready to face the world when we are young, but looking back I think most of us would say that we weren't as grown up as we thought we were.

I don't believe in sheltering young people from life, but I do believe that they should be sheltered from some aspects of SL. Do you really think that newbie chasing me around with his appendage hanging out asking for sex is an adult? If he is, he certainly isn't someone I would want my child to have to deal with without a little more experience in life to say the least.

I agree with Brenda. 21+ would probably be better.

A very well thought out and worded post. Thank you.

Heck i think i am mature at 39

NOT

I can't believe 4 hours have pasted and no one has posted the following:

"Can I have your stuff?"

Sorry but someone had to do it.

Seriously though, good luck, hope to see you back here in a few years.
Don't be in too big a rush to get older. Before you know it you'll be 40 or 50 years old looking back and wondering how the time went by so fast.

See you soon, Buring! Stay in school, drive carefully, get a job...all that sort of stuff. We'll keep a seat open for you in the meantime.

Immaturity runs in the family, brother Zapatero.

Yeah, right. Join the U.S. military, finish basic and AIT and get assigned to someplace in the world where 18 is considered way old and the weed is laced with dope. Keep 'em off SL...

Get real. If you think 18 is too young for SL, you have led a sheltered life. And do take a thought about the recent photos that got notoriety, the ones shared on the Internet by those not yet 18.

And this is NOT a recent phenomena. The U.S. had a bubble of middle class white comfort that everyone seems to think lasted forever, but was really from the end of the Korean conflict to the early 60s. At the beginning of the 1900s, you would be living on a farm, where you had beaucoup exposure to whelping and dying, and about 18 you would be looking to get married and have your own place, if possible. Full load of living early. And then there was the depression. The protected 18 year olds is a myth of the brief comfortable period post war, between reality on the farm and reality on the Internet, and continued primarily by parents that have no idea what their kids are really doing away at college.

Not sure about Europe, but the U.S. really does not have a history of our whelps being protected well into young adulthood.

Yep, good advice...everytime I hear that Trace Adkins song, I think where did the time go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG9XfJxMY8A

Ashe

I was thinking the same thing. 15 is around the age where kids think their parents (and probably many if not most adults) are sooo stupid and don't know anything.

Then they hit around 25 or so, adult responsibilities start to hit, perhaps a new baby and all of a sudden their parents gain IQ points.

This.

The entire U.S. was not one large pastureland in the 1990's. My paternal grandmother was born in 1903 and was a total city girl. (I have a great photo of her dressed in "flapper" attire in the '20's).

OTOH, my maternal grandparents and their family generations backwards and forwards live/d in an extremely rural area. (Think close to where Loretta Lynn was born.)

Due to all the "whelping and dying" she witnessed while growing up in that area, my mother is a vegetarian and never wanted children. (Good thing I was an "accident" *grins*)

My point being, it just depends on what part of the country one was in...much like today.

I commend Burning for doing the right thing. We all know there are kids on the main grid who shouldn't be in SL... when we fidn them we AR them and hope LL does something. If I had a teenaged daughter/son, I would not let them anywhere near SL. There is too much in SL that it would be just wrong. I have heard about the teen but I would think they have found ways around the "Teen" age restrictions. Teenagers these days are very resourceful.

**Note to LL** No, I have never been on the teen grid nor would want to

That being said, Burning, when you come back in 3 years, look me up. I am sure I'll still be around. I commend your honesty and hold alot of respect for you for coming clean about your age. This does show you are more mature than most 18+ who are in the game.

QFT. Only don't get a job. Stay away from jobs for as long as you possibly can. They stink and you have to do them nearly every day for the rest of your life. My vote is to stay in academia; go for a Ph.D. That'll take forever and will give you an excuse to be a student till you're at least 30.

Don't do drugs and do use a condom. That's about all the good advice I can give. See you in three years (they'll fly by, believe me.)

Hmmm... I'm just the opposite.

I say, "Get a job hippie!"

And smoke a bowl or two.

Both will do you good.

I have been far from sheltered, I had waaay too much fun to have been sheltered lol

but I am old enough now to realize just how young I was at 18.

And you don't have to go back as far as the 1900's to see people planning their adult lives at 18, at least half of the girls in my high school graduating class were married before the end of summer. Thankfully that has changed now, but then, it was the plan. You graduate, get married, and have kids...hopefully in that order. A few of us went to college, and a few of us hit the road running. The vietnam conflict ended when I was 16 (I know, I'm giving my age away lol) but I remember when you were old enough to be drafted, fight and die...but you weren't old enough to vote.

Oh I forgot the emoticon. It was a joke, Sparky. You can put away your soapbox.

First, it was humor, not serious.

Second, while it's true that minors can find porn on the internet, that doesn't mean it's a good thing or that opening SL up to kids would be a good thing. If you were trying to make a point there, you failed.

Third, being exposed to animal husbandry as a child is great. Being exposed to real, honest, committed human sexual relations (between your parents) as a child was a fact of life until relatively recently, and no doubt still is in much of the 3rd world, due to one room dwellings. Neither of these is remotely like the wild abandonment of sexuality in SL. Quite the contrary, they're real, committed, and with observable consequences. Once again, if you were trying to make a point, you missed the mark widely.

I'm sure there are good counter-arguments to banning minors from SL,. I'm not criticizing your viewpoint, only the arguments you used.

Good luck, Buring. There's always the teen grid. You can hone your creative skills there and then explode on the main grid with mad skills and a ready made shop!