I had played a PC game called Myst...and somehow thought, ( quite mistakenly) that SL would feel like an unlimited version of Myst!
I logged in 2008, and this is my original avie. Like many of us, I wondered what made me pick that name, but I have grown into who Lenni became. Like another writer said, if I hear my avie's name called out in RL public, I look! She is the cute tomboy version of my female me.
I met a friendly avatar named Hippie Bowman, found me on Help Island, on my second day, and he took me home with him. He showed me how to ice skate, and I got it , finally, but then wore the ice skates for a week, he had not told me how to take them off! Hippie is a huge part of Second Life now. Running an amazing sim, and also having created HippieStock! The gathering of the year in SL. I was blessed to meet Hip, or I don't think I would have made it. SL is hard technically, especially back then, and I became proud of being about to actually do it. My emotional side, was hooked, so I had to wrap my head around the tools, and make it work.
I went exploring, and met a fairy kinda winged girl named Misty Rhodes. I was accidently hovering over her house looking for another destination in the guide, and she asked "Can I help you"?
Boy did my life change! She knew everything, I mean she had SL figured out! And so warm, and open and helpful. We friended and ran off into the abyss together, night after night. She taught me how to voice chat with her and I loved her rich New York accent.The places she showed me I had never seen before, and seemed it was all in construction.. she was working on so much for the community. Events and things I had no idea happened. I was inspired by her. ... one night, after having run around all day with her, I asked about her real life, and how she had time to do this much in SL? Whats was her RL job?
(Odd how it takes like months in SL with friends, to ever really wonder about that, with so much to do, it often feels irrelevant)
But She said..." I can't tell you my real life job ok? I just can't...." " against the rules" .... but she could just feel what I was thinking..
She must be a prostitute, or a mama who runs a whore house, or maybe a drug dealer in RL? my mind raced...
She felt my tension and said, "ok ok" and then rezzed in as Mia Linden...oops!! I had like no idea in the world she was a LInden, and she knew it! She laughed at me for a long time, and told me never to tell anyone she was Linden, cuz she wanted her avie Misty to have another life. I understood that. I guess I was pretty dense not to figure it out...Talk about a great friend, we went to 2 SLCC conventions together and met in person, and remain close in RL to this day.
The friends I have met in SL, from all over the globe are so important to me. To have a conversation with a group of people from 6 different countries at the same time, is amazing. SL offers an immersion with others, that I can't describe well, from the hysterical laughter, to the tears. It's an important platform I will never leave.