WHEN 2 WORLDS COLLIDE: Mack and Me.- Mackenzie’s Mumblings...

Hi, I'm Mackenzie Abbot, nice to meet you.

I'm a journalist, DJ, married with 1 child and one on the way.  I live on an island in a large house with my wife Pia.  I have a steady income from pay checks and tips.  I used to be a lethario who would try and bed any woman he came across but meeting my goddess changed me. Life is good at the moment.  I'm happy with my lot and hope it continues.

In real life, I'm a thirty-five year old, separated father of one who sees his son once a week.  I'm just under six foot tall and when I stand up and look down, I can't see my own size ten feet.  Even with my osteo spondylitis, which is a curved spine to you and me, I still can’t see them.  I have some mental health problems and I live at home with my mother.  Real life, my friends, is not so good and I hope it gets better.  Ladies, come and get me!

So now you know a little more about both sides of me.  Does it matter to you?  Do you think any less or more of me for sharing what is, quite frankly, a lot of personal information?

As we all know, Second Life is where you can be yourself and live the life that the real world denies you.  Whether you want to be a whore who provides horizontal refreshment for a handful of virtual dollars, or you want be the high flying CEO of whatever company you desire, you can do it in Second Life.  But how much of your avatar is actually you?  Most people I've met on my travels around the sims choose to be the person they are portraying in Second Life and prefer to keep their real lives to themselves, which is fair enough.  Others let out little bits of their real worlds selves over time, while some are open books and don't give a damn what people know or find out.  I, gentle reader, fall into the latter category.  If people want to know anything about me, they just have to ask, and all my friends here know that.  After all, as well as being “just a game”, Second Life could be classed a large social network.  If people can find out your name and read your Facebook profile, view your photos and find out what you've been up to, why not share that in Second Life?

There are elements of me in my avatar; obviously not the looks or height, but the personality.  Mack is respectful, flirty and always there to listen to people if they have problems or just need to talk about stuff.  That's me in everyday life, or at least I hope it is.  But Mack doesn't have my aforementioned problems or my extremely quick temper.  He is not prone to shouting his head off at people because they get on his nerves or say something wrong.  That's just not his way.  In a way, Mack is slowly helping me overcome my own personal problems by teaching me how to be a better person, despite the fact that Mack is me.  Now Mack, despite being an open book, wouldn't just spill anything to anyone; we all have secrets that we have to keep to ourselves.  But the majority of my life story is open to anyone who cares to ask about it.  And Mack is merely the portal that allows you enter my not quite happy-clappy world.  Second Life allows you to have the easy choice of keeping everything about you secret and be someone else, or being someone else with the additional option of allowing people to know who you really are.  Have you actually got a real life picture of yourself on your profile?  I have...

Now everyone who reads this article would never know all this about Mack to look at him.  Even getting to know him, you'd probably think he was funny. a bit mad at times but ultimately lovable.  I could have kept my real life information to myself and nobody would have been any the wiser. In fact, some of my real world friends don't know all the above information about me; but then again, they don't play Second Life, nor read the SL Enquirer, so that secret is still safe.

So, in summary, just because you're here in Second Life, it doesn't mean your real life persona has to be divulged to anyone and everyone.  You do, of course, have the ability (and the right) to share your innermost feelings, fears, hopes with whomever you choose, whenever you choose.  And that brings me to my next question....

Can you keep your Second Life out of the real world?

Yes is the simpler answer to that question. The reason being is that not everybody in the world is on the internet, nor do they know about Second Life.  It may be down to ignorance, or the fact that the idea of wandering around pretending to be someone or something else just doesn't appeal to them.  In both cases, they won't know what you get up to nor will they know who you are.  The majority of worldly friends will only know what games you play and what your username is only if they ask you, or you add them in game.  Nobody need know you have a Second Life. 

Ultimately, you can always just tell people to mind their own business (or words to that effect) and get back on with being a whore/furry/woodland creature of some sort.  As for Mack and I, we don't care what you know...

...as long as it comes from us.