Weston Graves

My land will always be open to all residents forever, or until they earn a ban by obvious griefing. The ejector crowd can rest assured I have no interest in them.

This discussion has been ongoing for the 15 years I've been in SL. Maybe there should be two different land types all grouped together into continents. One for those who find themselves so important they can't stand the thought of someone accidentally seeing their artificial stuff that doesn't even exist, and one for those who want to enjoy exploring other's creativity without having their experience interrupted.

I know this is an old thread but I don' see a resolution yet. Are you folks who are having the problem using Phoenix viewer? I am and I have the same problem. I wonder if a different viewer would let me save? I've been using Print Scrn and cropping as a workaround.

No, I was unaware of them. I will look them up if you think I should. Thanks.

A professional advised me that undiagnosed anxiety can cause us to settle for the wrong person. One should never settle for a person. That’s not fair to either party, but especially not fair to yourself. But we feel we deserve no better.

Thanks for the tips everyone. I've been a pie throwing Cartel member since day one and I see it's still in my group list. I've just been away from SL so long I've forgotten most of it. 🙃

Latey I’ve been listening to lot of a streaming show called dis(PERSE) DISPATCH, offering ambient, experimental and “difficult” music. Well, I’m not sure how difficult it is but I do enjoy the ambient and experimental aspect. I have no clue what the name of the show means. All the episodes are on Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/disperseDispatchEpsisode477

I’ve recently returned to SL and visited an info-hub where everyone was using voice. Trust me, there is no quicker way to destroy the fantasy. I turned off voice immediately and left for less depressing climes. I think the old SL text chat is the only way to go for me. Besides, what would I do on a mic? Bark?

So many old familiar names, and maybe a couple of the same avatar faces too from a decade ago in this thread! It makes me feel good. I’ll just check for the green dots on the world map every so often to see if there’s anyone at The Cartel hangout.

Thank you for this link. I am curious if these groups are active, so I’ll be checking them out. Often I find groups completely moribund, but it’s worth a shot. I’ve been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and was in therapy for a year or so until life events prevented it. One thing I found puzzling is that the disorder spills over into SL as well, so that if I see a green dot on the mini-map, my brain screams “Avoid! Avoid! Stay out of their way. Don’t impose your burdensome self on others,” just as it does in real life, even though I am often lonely and want to interact. Oddly, becoming an innocuous dog avatar seemed to help a little and I’m not sure why. But I think the virtual world could be a remarkable tool (dubious online advice notwithstanding) to explore different therapies and areas of research. At the very least it might be comforting to team up with others who have similar issues, assuming we can overcome the issues long enough to connect. The only trouble is, it seems you can trust people even less in the virtual world than in the real one. How would one know if the other person really has a mental health issue, and does it matter? I’m optimistic that someone will figure it all out someday.

I'm in the exact same boat returning after many years, and I'm so old, I thought Discord was just something you experience before having a breakup. Based on what I've heard, I suppose Discord might be a good supplement to SL. I've heard some voice chat at the old SL hubs and many of these are not folks I'd want to hang out with in either life.

You're right, it doesn't have to be a beagle as along as it's charming. Golden Retrievers are nice. But it does have to be quadrupedal so as not to confuse me with furry culture which is a different animal so to speak. The dog avatar just somehow helped me partially overcome my social anxiety which bleeds over into the virtual world from the real world But I have hijacked this thread enough -- not my intention. Returning has been great fun so far. I'm thinking about hanging out at NCI for advice. That should look weird if anyone sees the 15+ years in my profile!

That looks awesome! I'll check it out.

I totally get the desire to leave. As an old timer (15 years) I really identified with and felt welcomed everywhere I went as the beagle avatar in the pic to the left. But that avatar broke with one of the updates a few years back and was discontinued. I never found a sense of self again in world, so I left for a number of years. I felt the need to return just today, but I guess it will be as a human now, or an alien. 🤨 I'm finding I don't even remember how to move around! Also, everything has changed. But that's life. My real life has changed dramatically too. Anyway I'm glad you decided to return.

Wooof! You know -- I've been needing to come back inside for several years now. What IS it with humans anyway?