Forced - or False - Intimacy

One of my classes this semester has required that I obtain a Second Life account. For anyone who doesn't know what that means, it's a virtual world - complete with obscene amounts of commerce, fabulous shoes, and an overall disregard for morality. Perhaps I'm being a little harsh - especially considering the amount of fun I'm having on it. While I'm working on an extensive project within the environment, I'm also learning how to be an above average stripper (one of the few readily available jobs within this world). I've befriended people from around the country and the world - and even a couple of horses and a unicorn.
But as much fun as this alternative reality is, a form of escapism with highly detailed graphics and often some really great music, it's still managing to leave me with a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
One man that I've met on Second Life told me the other night about women who have attempted to blur the line between Second Life and Real Life.
So my thoughts on this...
With the anonymity that Second Life offers its users, along with its devolution into ... well, a lack of morality ... it's easy for people to share more of the private things about their lives. If no one knows who you are, it seems safer to admit to the darker bits of your soul, right?
For those who know where their boundaries are within this world, that can be fine. After all, I'm fairly certain that my friend the horse in Second Life is NOT a horse in Real Life. There's some fantasy elements that surround everything here - and who knows if what anyone says is the truth.
But there are people in this world who have problems separating the fantasy from the reality - and so when they appear in this alternate world, can come to confuse Second and Real. Or is it Real and Second?
One of the founders of Second Life, on the program's five year anniversary last year, made some disparaging comments about the user base of Second Life. Basically, he suggested that the people who comprised the bulk of its users tended to be misfits and unable to function within real society - and that they were drawn to this other reality where they could create alter egos of themselves - avatars who would be the cool people they could not be in their own lives.

I guess its this combination of what the supposed user base is, with the false intimacy that the environment often creates. Such an unstable combination makes me worry at times that even allowing people to know I'm in Illinois (that's as far as I go with my own details) is too much.

Maybe, from now on, my avatar will be from Missouri.