Can You Go Home To The Metaverse Once You've Left?

After a few weeks away from Second Life, Mygdala March returns to one of her favorite haunts, and discovers her longtime friends are no longer there.  "It’s a funny thing to pull back from your life, no matter from which life you find yourself in retreat," she muses. "There’s a certain amount of starting over. And that’s a little intimidating, to be honest." It's actually not an uncommon thought; I know many Residents who get burnt out on being in-world for one reason or another, then go away for weeks, months, sometimes years.  Sometimes you greet them warmly the moment they're back, but often, it takes awhile to remember who they are.  If you've been a temporary exile like Myg, how hard was it for you to return?

Comments

[Laetizia Coronet]

I've been away for three months. And I haven't been able to get back in, not really. It also has to do with the fact that I choose (new) family life over Second Life and so I am not on in the evening like I used to be. European daytime SL is just not where it's happening.

[Gahum Riptide]

I had actually been away for most of 2007, only able to get in sporadically, and only for increments of a minute or two since the newer versions of the client would crash my computer. I actually didn't know about the great gambling ban until I returned earlier this year.

It wasn't hard for me to return since I hadn't really made a lot of friends since I hadn't been really established before the new clients would kill my computer.

I returned because I began to miss building and seeing a lot of the really creative builds, but I did notice there seemed to be a shift in the social dynamics of the grid (residents less likely to come up and start chatting, for instance. Maybe it's just me?)

[Alex Lapointe]

I've had a few "disappearances" from SL both by choice and by RL factors usually lasting 3-5 months. With my main haunt being the Shelter, I'm lucky enough to find that a lot of the regular people I've known have still been around their. However, it's strange to see and meet new regulars who've come in during an absence and I've felt a sort of strange disconnect.

[Jaymin Carthage]

I've got the new family thing going on too so I've been mostly absent. Things are settling down and I'm in world more often. I mostly zoom in and out doing stuff for the job at this point. My colleagues are fine, because they have context for me in-world and out-of-world. My friends... I haven't had as much chance to catch up with them since my time for hanging out has been rather constrained. But the few I've met have been welcoming and happy to see me. So I haven't felt disconnected.

[Erik Commons]

A couple months ago I burnt out and walked away. Most of my major contacts were off doing their own things, my closest friends caught up in busy academic or romantic pursuits and my in-world business drying up with the economy. I stopped logging in, with nothing more then a clearing of new messages once a week or so.

Then I got an email from Skills Hak, who I'd met once while I was in Saijo City building a my interpretation of William Gibson's net visuals. She was all excited because she'd just bought her first full sim and wanted me to come check it out. I logged in to find the beginnings of whats now InSilico. Since then I've popped in every day to check out the progress and chat with her. I helped her get the insilico.ning.com site up, which is now the primary site for all things InSilico related.

Seeing Ms. Hak work got me totally stoked for SL again, but in a new direction. Now I'm setting out to learn about LibSL and OpenSim so I can get my own small grid going, maybe connected to OSGrid some day in the future. I'm excited once again, for the first time in a couple years, to see where this technology is headed, and perhaps even help it get there.

[ArianeB]

For about 2 years now, I have had a continuous cycle: 1 to 2 months in Second Life, 1 to 2 months doing web site tinkering, 1 to 2 months in Guild Wars. Repeat. Only the occasional cool desktop game squeezes itself into the cycle occasionally.

Everything gets old after a while, but the best things become new again.