Please Come Back

"I am hoping you get this... please come back, we miss you."

I haven't been on Second Life for a good long while. I guess I've just not had quite as much time or inclination for it recently.

There are people I know on Second Life - I'm not sure I'd really be as presumptuous to call them "friends" because that's really their decision rather than mine - but in any case I wasn't really expecting my absence to be noticed or for anyone to be particuarly bothered that I was just not around any more.

I'm not quite sure how to take it. I guess on one level it should be nice to be missed - heart-warming somehow to be liked enough that someone realises when I'm not there. Or maybe that too is being rather presumptuous and there is another less ego-flattering reason at play. But on another level.. slightly worrying. Suddenly, more of an obligation, a responsibility.. and even without being there, I might already be making people feel bad.

I do worry about stuff like that. One of those things at the back of my mind which worries me so, the idea that I leave people worse off than I found them.. that somehow as much as I might enjoy people's company, as much as I'd hope to be a fun and decent and useful person to have around... what if I was actually bad for people? What if, overall, without even knowing, I was somehow saying or doing things that actually just upset people? Without even knowing. I'm not sure I could stand that.

It seems I can do it without even being around, and on the occasions when that particular thought has currency, it gives me this terrible urge to run away. Just to disappear, to crawl back into my shell and keep myself to myself and not bother other people any more. Because as much as I do like other people's company, I'm fairly sure that I'd miss them a hundred times more than they'd miss me - if they even noticed at all. As much as it would hurt, sometimes it just seems like the right thing to do, because the idea of upsetting people with something that I did or didn't say, without even realising, is just too painful to bear.

The usual problem is that "friendship", at the risk of being presumptuous again, is that it's just too hard to escape. Inevitably I'll end up saying or doing something which gives people other ways to find me or get in touch, which makes it hard to ever truly disappear, no matter how strong the urge sometimes is. There is no escape, short of moving house - but I guess, no-one's really going to come knocking on my door just because I haven't been on Second Life for a few months. Or at least, I certainly hope not. That would just be too embarrassing.

So as far as Second Life goes, I need to decide - return... or run? Oh, how stupid is this? I wish I was better at this kind of thing. Just not being a complete basket-case would certainly be a good place to start, but I doubt if that's going to happen any time soon.