Twenty questions about my SL

It's that time again. That time when I relax the not-really-a-rule of not doing every meme-a-like thing doing the rounds and be sociable and take part. Like last time it's one of Strawberry's meme posts that got my interest. The questions are pretty interesting and I think I'll have fun "discovering" my answers.

So here goes...

1. When and how did you discover Second Life? -- I originally signed up mid 2006, although I'd known about it for some time before then. I'd been interested by the idea of it for some time but never went past the stage of reading about it for ages. Then, late one Friday afternoon, I got curious and created an account.
2. Did you know about virtual worlds before or was this your first experience with them? -- Depends on what we mean by "know" here. The idea of virtual worlds has been around rather a long time and given that I've always been into science fiction, and have always been involved with computing (both as a hobby and as work), it's a thing that I can't really remember even not being on on radar. And then there was all the time "wasted" playing LAN-based FPS type games too.
3. Has Second Life met your expectations? -- More than met. It's exceeded them. I joined expecting it to be a bit rubbish and something that likely wouldn't hold my interest too long. It didn't for the first few years, I'd dip in and out and that was it, but since early 2010 there's hardly been a day when I haven't been in-world for some period of time.
4. If you could teleport back to the first ten minutes of your avatar’s slife, what would you tell yourself? -- I'd tell myself that that L$5 (grabbed from money trees) I kept in my account for ages really wasn't anything special and that I should buy a few L$ and go have lots of fun.
5. How long did it take you to master avatar flying and driving vehicles inworld? -- I can't really remember not being able to fly or drive a vehicle.
6. Do you have a mystery alt? -- Technically I am the mystery alt.
7. Is your SL avatar a reflection of you, or someone you wished you could be? -- A bit of both. When I'm logged in my approach to people and reactions to people, etc, are no different than RL me. My in-world desires and interests aren't that different from part of my RL either. In-world they're just amplified a little and allowed to run a little wilder.
8. Is there an individual you met in SL that inspired you in your RL? How? -- Not really, no. That's not to say that I'm not lucky enough to consider some amazing people as friends in-world, it's just that my in-world friends and acquaintances are something that stays very much in-world. Only one person spans both worlds and we knew each other before we both got together in-world.
9. Do you feel it is easier to create stronger bonds/relationships with people you meet inworld as opposed to the real world? -- Not really. I think I find it easier to make smalltalk in-world, mostly because in-world it's easier to meet up with like-minded people, but I wouldn't say my in-world relationships are in any way stronger than my RL ones. I'm naturally introverted and cautious in both.
10. Did you ever imagine or believe people could fall in love with someone they never met before Second Life? -- As others have said in answer to this question, this has been a thing long before Second Life, or even the Internet, existed. I think you'd have to be pretty shallow and narrow-minded to imagine it isn't possible to fall in love with someone you've not physically met.
11. How has your perspective of dating changed (or not) since you started playing second life? -- I can't say it's changed at all. Then again I've never been in SL for "dating", at least not in the "going and seeking a date" sense.
12. How has your perspective of employment changed (or not) since you started playing second life? -- Again, it hasn't really changed at all. As a software developer the idea of making a living from "virtual goods" has never been anything other than totally natural to me.
13. Name three things in both your lives that overlap each other significantly. -- Miss Vila, programming and... erm.... Zardia! ;)
14. If you could live your life more immersively in a virtual world, would you? (Kind of like the Matrix) -- Yeah, no hesitation. Not to the exclusion of RL but I'd love to try it and I imagine I'd really love it. We encourage kids to get lost inside their own heads through play and reading and the like and then, for some odd reason, we often discourage it in adults. It's as if being imaginative and enjoying your own head is seen as a bad thing. Having tools to get totally inside your own head would be awesome.
15. How do you think behaviour changes for people if they’re inworld vs in real world? Why do you think that is? -- People can be arseholes in both words. People can be wonderful in both worlds. People can be entitled pricks in both words. People can be helpful and generous in both worlds. I don't much buy into the "anon makes people worse" line of thinking (down that route lies such nonsense as Google's nymwars). People will be what they are.
16. How has second life consumerism changed your perception of spending habits, the value of money, the need to be “bleeding edge” with fashion? -- I can't say it's changed my perception one bit. Then again I don't really do the fashion thing in either world.
17. Do you think virtual worlds like SL drive and redefine human interaction or do they narrow and limit it? -- Neither. People who think they narrow and limit it are, in my experience, narrow-minded bigots. On the other hand people who think that virtual worlds are the coming of a whole new paradigm of human interaction tend to be single-issue obsessives who care more about the technology, or their own punditry, than anything else.
18. If technology progressed tomorrow to allow you to send emotions to people the way you’d send text or voice messages, would it enrich your SL experience or infringe on it? -- If you're not sending emotions with text now you're probably doing it wrong.
19. Name three skills you attribute to having learned or honed in second life alone. -- I'm not sure that I really can. Generally it tends to be the other way round. The things I do in SL tend to be an extension of or an exploration of things in my RL.
20. If your grand kids googled your Second Life Avatar’s name, would they be intrigued, disgusted, proud or something else? -- While I suspect this question is aimed at how I'd view myself and what can be found about me on the web it's really more of a question of how mature and open-minded these future offspring of mine will be. That's their problem, not mine. ;)