Virtual worlds

I like the idea of spending time in a virtual world.  All the media reports I encounter about worlds like Second Life suggest that one can have fun.  There are nightclubs, concerts, interesting architecture, and lots and lots of avatars flying about in search of engaging conversation.  There is even a level of perversity I couldn't possibly find in my real life.  I've read the novel Snow Crash, which apparently inspired the founders of Second Life.  There avatars move through worlds that are both thrilling and challenging.  Like a Hong Kong movie, they battle each other with swords.

But all I ever feel in Second Life is incredibly bored.  My basic avatar has wandered alone through pixelated, monumentally empty spaces without so much as an uptick in my heartbeat.  I can fly, but where is the excitement?  I know I should try something like World of Warcraft, with its guild communities of warriors, but I just don't have the time.  I suppose like any social relationship, a virtual community is only as good as the time you put into it.  Maybe.  I read something recently that suggested people in Second Life don't move out of the basic proscribed roles that one might find in a sorority.   Rather than experiment with different roles, their basic goal is to conform. The object is to buy things and what people generally purchase first are things like big tits and tight muscles. But someone studying the emotional dimensions of the online world, Sherry Turkle, suggests that virtual worlds are places to experiment with one's emotional range.  I'd like to think that this is possible. Unfortunately, I just can't spare the time from the emotional roller coaster that is my reality-based life.