Finding a New Identity

My husband, a dear soul, is somewhat of a ludite. He just got a cell phone last year, and only at my insistence. When I traded up on my iPod I gave him my old one, but he still prefers to carry around a CD player. The only reason we have a flat screen TV is because I went out and bought it (of course, he does enjoy watching it).

He has always been a little leery of technology. I remember when ATMs became all the rage (yes, I am that old), he never liked to use them. What if they gave him the wrong amount? What if there was a malfunction? And he wouldn't even consider using them for deposits. Imagine if the deposit got lost in their system. No, he prefered to go directly to real live people.

Well, he's finally adapted to the ATM, his paychecks are electronically deposited and he has a cellphone and iPod, so one might say he's a full-fledged citizen of the digital world.

Clearly, though, he's just on the periphery. And as much as I like to think I'm all down with the technology, it's clear I'm on the periphery as well. You see, I hate to admit this but I don't have a MySpace page (or Facebook or Squidoo or any of those social networking kinds of things). I hate IM'ing (or texting or whatever we're calling it these days). I've never posted a video on YouTube. I've also never played a video game on the web (I do, of course, have a Nintendo DS -- doesn't every 40-year old woman?).

All that's about to change. As I'm writing this book about e-scapism I realize I need to dabble in all those escapist activities -- videos online, social networking and, yes, even chatting. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

To get started, I logged on to secondlife.com yesterday and set up an account. Now I'm one of those neophytes entering this Brave New World through what looks like an outdoor park in Northern California. A few initial thoughts:

First of all, when you first enter the game you're surrounded by a lot of other newbies who are floating around, experimenting with chat, and figuring out how to alter their appearance. It feels a little like an incubation room. I had selected a somewhat outlandish avatar (hey, this is supposed to be fantasy, right?) and was surprised to see that most of the other newbies went with the most "human-esque" of the options.

It's weird how you can't ever see your face without turning all the way around using the arrow keys. I kept wanting to see what I look like. But then I realized -- when I'm walking around the real world, I can't see my face. That's a little strange to think about. I think I know what I look like to the rest of the world, but maybe I don't...

Almost immediately upon entering, people started coming up to me and saying "hello." Oddly enough, that made me really uncomfortable. See, I'm actually not a big people person. I realy wanted to spend some time alone trying to figure out how to make myself look a certain way, figure out how to move smoothly, etc. before talking to people. Even in cyberspace the typical woman's body image issues come home to plague her. In general, I was suspicious of the initial hellos. But I realize that I'll need to loosen up a little and really, what's the harm? (she asked, before she fell victim to a cyberstalker).

I'm looking forward to playing around more in this alternative universe, but I don't think I'll get hooked. I'm pretty contented in this Universe. However, I did think it funny that in contemplating my future in Second Life, my initial thoughts were to find a city, get a job and an apartment, get a dog, etc. And then I thought "why do all that? why live an ordinary life?" Secondlife is, after all, a Second Life. I'm thinking I'm going to approach it as a place to live out absolutely crazy hopes and dreams -- who knows? If I try them out online and I'm successful, maybe they'll work in the real world as well!