Do friends take you seriously?

Maybe that's part of your problem, if you are having one. I don't "Live my life in a cyber world", I visit it as part of my Real Life entertainment. I have no need for sympathy, that would be like needing sympathy for doing any of my other hobbies. My friends and family don't need to do anything to make me realize that RL matters. I've known that since I was around 18. If SL is causing you a problem, perhaps you need to step back and re evaluate it.

i think from seeing the connection between both of the OP's threads it's easy to see there has been a love lost and a heart broken..
so sorry for your pain..

hope this helps

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

When I told my family about the internet's existence in the late 80s, I was told I was making it up. When I said I thought that someday the whole world would be using it to communicate and share ideas, yeah: I got laughed at. Sadly, one thing I thought would happen didn't: I remember reading posts from protester's in Tienanmen Square -while- it was happening... and thinking; once this thing gets out of the university basements (where a guy I knew had snuck me in to show it to me), it will be impossible for any government in the world to avoid democracy... Sigh... I was a little bit of an idealist. I actually once believed that capitalism and globalization would bring freedom, not the opposite.

Er... that was a side track.

Do people think its silly?

My mother spends all of her time obsessing over religions and church politics in a liberal minded church. To the point of sometimes failing to pay her own bills, get home, and so on and so forth. A sibling who plays an MMO takes a lot of heat from her for 'ignoring RL.'

My sister devotes massive time to keeping her sex life up, and devoting herself to a man that hates her son and barely likes her. Her son takes it out by getting into fights at school, and slowly turning into the same kind of jerk his biological father was. Yet she blames 100% of his aggression, bad grades, and machismo on the fact that he had a world of warcraft account for a few months and was therefore a 'fantasy junkie' because that's what they told her at her church; where to run about like headless chickens speaking in tongues and call it devotion...

When you have a psychotic indecent after taking PCP, you're a dangerous junkie. When you have it in an evangelical church after spinning till your brain is soup and listening to hours of mind-rattling chanting; they call it being born again...

I'm sidetracking again.

Point being, my opinion is that people who claim things like SL are people ignoring RL responsibility are often themselves using aspects of 'RL' to avoid other RL responsibilities, or casting blame on easy-target A rather than complex issue B.

I thought the Internetz were fake until 2000

No way Al Gore could do all that.

Those who would "laugh" aren't exactly "functioning" at peak level in RL....

......with lack if imagination, lack of creativity, or just the inability or drive to use it. Probably stunted in their communication and social skills....and probably possessing a lower intelligence level that would give them the ability to grasp the concepts. Close-minded or narrow minded....and stagnating miserably in their attempts or lack of attempts for self-discovery and exploration.

Not to mention that they lack the self esteem required to accept and respect someone who is functioning at higher levels....break that down very simply to raw envy and jealousy toward someone who can function productively in a variety of venues, and enhance quite a few aspects of their life through the exploration.

Are your friends doing enough to help you with that, Dirtymuck? Issues? Can we help?

You don't still believe he did it all do you?

Pep (He just took the credit for what Tipper did.)

I was laughed at pretty hard until SL paid for one of these...




Well, minus the hood scoop anyway, that's not on mine.

Nobody dissin' SL now...

Oooohhhh sexy!

So that's why you don't role-play in SL, you role-play on Route 66 instead.

Fixed it for you.

lol - NOW that song is stuck in my head thank you very much.

Excuse me folks. I need to go listen to some doom metal for a while.

You could only afford ONE ?????. Tsk!

I believe it about as much as I do his other "pet project"

Wait- Gore keeps a Pet? Hmm...

Almost all my friends are free-thinking, videogame-playing, tech-savvy, college educated people in their late 20s, many with a family and kids. Many of them use to play World of Warcraft with me, until I quit a couple years ago. I'm sure at least a handful of them have tried Second Life, or secretly play it right now, unbeknowest to me.

My family is also very open and I talk about Second Life quite often. Some of them find it fascinating. There are a number of programmers and I.T. people in my family so they find the building and scripting pretty cool. I've even talk about some of the crazy sex fetishes I've run into, much to my cousin's amusement.

It saddens me that so many people have to deal with asshole friends (i.e. not real friends) and narrow-minded, ignorant family members. If I had people like those in my life I'd flip em off and say adios to their ass. I only spend my time with people who support me.

Lamb sakes? I love that! Reminds me of my grandmother who always said 'Land o'Goshen' and 'Oh my stars and garters!'

like his energy saving house? lol
he is famous here in Tennessee for that house lol

Tipper wears a collar.

lol..
Lamb sakes ALIVE
or aw Pew!!! which means she she didn't believe you
or betwixed here and there
or you gotta likkin comin if you don't mind those big britches of yours..
lol

Amazing sculpt work!

My personal favorite is go teach your grandmother to suck eggs

/hmm.. me prepares notecard with pretty pet cage advert...

Your question isn't well put. I don't live in SL. That's not possible.

If I told my friends that I "lived in a cyber world" they would think I'd cracked my brain pan.

I *live* in the real world. I play in Second Life.

I suspect that you are close to someone, or wish you were close to someone, who seems to prefer Second Life to you.

If that's the case, and you come out honestly and say so, I think you will find we are more than willing to talk about that problem.

.

You'd have to make a new one that is environmentally friendly.

LOL @ Desmond. Yeah, though I don't make a drop in the bucket compared to you, mentioning making RL money in SL changes people's opinion pretty quickly.

OP, I am pretty sure you are just trolling, but I am in the mood to answer anyway. (To forum regulars, if I've told this story before, please forgive me. It makes me smile.)

Even more than money, if I choose to tell a close friend about SL I tell them about my butterflies. I am married in RL to a programmer, a true geek. He is a great man, but the romance department is not always his strongest suit. Anyway, when Havoc 4 was implemented my favorite butterfly emmiter broke. I love my SL gardens, but the butterflies floating over the hand drawn blooms had always been my favorite part.

He spent weeks scripting me a new, far better one - working to get the flight just right, making the butterflies beautiful, life-like and filling the emitter with a range of sizes and colors to satisfy my every whim. SL allowed him to convert his talent for writing code into visual magic, and it's the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me in any world. The emitters are all over the grid now, and each time "Nim's butterfly" floats across a meadow, garden, or forest floor, it is a testament to how he feels about me.

I've never told this story to a married, female friend without evoking a sigh and a smile. For a moment I can see her 'get' the appeal of SL, and I can see her thinking...'My husband NEVER writes me software anymore!'