Creeping out the Creeper

Today I spent about a half an hour on Second Life and it was exciting and fun, and a little addicting. I was on the college campus, which is a little “introductory” which was great because I met some newbies like me. I now take back all of the nasty stereotypes I said about the computer “freaks”. When I was online today, I actually made two new friends, and I (earl) was not even wearing any pants! And it was not some weird sexual obstacle to overcome. I some how got confused and managed to loose my pants by carelessly clicking on some button. But, to my dismay, I met two friends, Eric and Brianna who did not seem to mind and accepted earl for who he really is. These two individuals were not sex freaks like I would think, and they honestly thought it was funny, after I explained, and I was surprised. They kept asking where my pants went and I kept responding with “I don’t know, I’m new and I don’t know how to get them back.” They then thought it would be fun to go “find” them and immediately run away. I thought they were running away because I wasn’t wearing any pants and kept asking if they wanted to dance with me. I felt a little bad and creepy myself, and wanted to be accepted by them. I thought asking a guy and a girl if they wanted to dance at the same time while I wasn’t wearing any pants took it a little too far. But they were so cool about it. I was particularly impressed with the man (Eric) who just thought it was funny. Eric see, it was his first time as with Brianna too, so we all decided to figure out together how to put on new clothes. This was where it began to get a little more personal. While we were “changing” I told Brianna she seemed shy, and she contested it. Then as she was changing her clothes I told her I like her shirt and she kept asking questions like, “do you really like it?” “why did you guys join?” “it’s just a shirt”. We were on the same page joking around and Eric even told me “earl, you funny.” We all then told what countries we were from Eric, Sweden, Brianna US and in the desert somewhere. We then divulged our “real” ages and talked openly about why we joined. I naturally told them I heard it was something “cool” to check out. It turned out to be a great “first time” bonding experience for us all creating our own online identities together. Like real friends in real life, we were a buffer for each other in an unusual environment, and made each other feel safe and ok about it. I kept reassuring the self conscious Brianna that “you look good girl” and “who cares! You can be whatever you want!.” Brianna being the instigator of the real conversation, she struck me as an insecure person in her natural identity and wanted to be comfortable in a virtual world, which I had to convince her of. Through out this process I was feeling happy to make people laugh on line and make a girl feel good about herself, who seemed to need a confidence booster. I feel the identity I produced in a short half hour was a solid one, even though I was not wearing pants for 95% of the time. Also I came to the conclusion that people online and online characters struggled with the same everyday insecurities as in real life, which I was not expecting at all. I mean come one, your avatar even has an identity complex?