Trying to Connect

I'm not someone who forms bond or friendships easily, especially when the interaction is not face-to-face. Even though I'm only a persona in Second Life, I still find it difficult to just walk up to someone and start typing to him or her, just like I find it difficult to walk up to someone in real life and start a conversation. I'm a naturally shy person and I'm finding it difficult to start even a virtual conversation. But, one of the 'missions' we were charged with while going into Second Life was to experiment with identity. While I've experimented quite a bit with my physical appearance, I've not done so personality wise. So I tried to experiment by starting a conversation with a player I was unfamiliar with. I had some failures and some successes. I felt most let down when I tried to start a conversation and received no response from the other person. But, I given how often that occurred, I'm assuming some of those people were just not at their computers or not paying attention to Second Life. Other attempts were a bit better and most followed along the lines of, where are you from, why are you interested in Second Life. Several of the people I spoke with were interested in the fact that I was in Second Life as part of a class project looking at virtual society and had some pretty decent conversations about people. Most people I spoke with weren't the stereotypical player, always on line and always creating more content. Most were just occasional users and most were meeting up with people they knew from outside Second Life. They weren't opposed to meeting people, they just enjoyed being in the game with others exploring with them.