Don’t Call Me Cute

 It started with an accidental voice message.

I was watching a YouTube short, and there was a guy singing. Without thinking, I started singing along. Somehow, by accident, I recorded myself and sent it to someone I had been talking to in Second Life.

Not planned. Not polished. Not some careful voice reveal.

Just me, being human for a second.

And his response was:

“You’re so cute.”

I know he probably meant it nicely. I know it was supposed to be a compliment. But something in me just stopped.

Because I am tired of being called cute.

There have been multiple times in my life where I have sent pictures to people, and the response has been the same kind of thing.

“Oh, you’re cute.”

“You’re so cute.”

And every time, something in me goes: no.

I am not cute.

I am a fully grown thirty-six-year-old woman. You do not put cute and me in the same sentence like that and expect it to land well.

I am not a little thing. I am not a novelty. I am not some soft, harmless version of a person that is easier for people to understand.

I am beautiful.

And there is a difference.

Cute is a word you use for a child, or for someone young enough that “cute” still makes sense. It belongs somewhere around twelve, thirteen, fourteen — that age where someone is not fully grown yet and the word still carries that harmless, innocent feeling.

But I am thirty-six.

So when someone looks at me, or hears me, or sees a picture of me, and the word they reach for is “cute,” it does not feel like a compliment. It feels like they are making me smaller than I am.

Maybe some people like being called that. Maybe it lands differently for them. But for me, especially as a disabled woman, it hits a place I am tired of having touched.

Because disabled women already get softened too much. People make us smaller without even realizing it. They talk around our bodies. They treat our needs like something fragile. They turn normal parts of our lives into something awkward or heavy. And then, when we show ourselves as women, as adults, as people with desire and presence and edge, they still reach for cute.

Like that is the safest word they can find.

But I am not something that needs protection.

I am fully capable of protecting myself when I need to. I have had to be. I have lived in this body. I have lived through the awkwardness, the assumptions, the staring, the softness people wrap around me without asking. I know how to read people. I know how to put my foot down. I know when to stay, and I know when to leave.

I am not something you need to protect.

And I am definitely not something you need to make smaller so you can feel more comfortable standing next to me.

I want to be seen.

Not as a chair. Not as a condition. Not as an inspiring little moment. Not as someone brave for existing. Not as someone adorable because I accidentally sang into my microphone.

As a woman.

A real one.

Beautiful. Grown. Present. Desired.

Not cute.

I am a force of nature.

I am not cute. I am beautiful in every single way possible.

There are so many words in this world to describe someone. You do not have to use the word cute.

You Don’t Lose Someone By Accident

 Hi everyone, it’s me, Tessa.

Sorry I’ve been quiet for a little while now. I’ve had a lot on my mind, and sometimes I need to pull back a bit before I can find the right words for what I’m actually feeling.

But there is something I’ve been wondering about for quite some time now.

Why are people in Second Life so indecisive?

I don’t mean small decisions, like where to go or what to wear. I mean the emotional things. The real things. The moments where you clearly feel something for another person, but instead of saying it, you walk twenty laps around the subject and pretend you don’t know what is going on inside you.

But you do know.

If you click with someone, you know. If there is something there, you feel it. Maybe it happens on the first day you meet them. Maybe it happens on the second. Maybe it surprises you completely. But pretending not to know does not make it less real. It just makes everything more complicated than it needs to be.

I think people are so afraid of feeling something that they start acting like the feeling itself is the problem. They hide behind “I don’t know,” when what they really mean is, “I’m scared.” Scared of being rejected. Scared of being too much. Scared of what it means if the other person matters faster than expected.

But feelings do not become safer just because you avoid saying them out loud.

And honestly, I think the same thing applies to friendship too.

When someone is struggling, don’t just say, “If you ever need anything, let me know.” I know people mean well when they say that, but it also puts the burden on the person who is already tired to reach out, explain what they need, and ask for help. Sometimes that is too much.

If you want to help someone, then help them.

Do the thing. Show up. Send the message. Offer something specific. Don’t make them carry the emotional weight of asking when you already know they need support.

It is the same in Second Life relationships, friendships, and connections. If you feel something, say something. If you care, show it. If you want to be there, be there.

Stop circling around the truth like the truth is going to bite you.

Because most of the time, the truth is already sitting between you both anyway. You are just pretending not to see it.

A couple of days ago, I broke off a long-term relationship with someone I had been with for over seven years in Second Life. I called him my husband. That was not a small thing to me. He had been there for me through a lot, even during the three years when I was in an abusive Second Life relationship. He tried to pull me out of that. He supported me. He showed up for me then.

And then, all of a sudden, he disappeared.

Not in one dramatic moment. Not with some big fight or clear ending. He just stopped showing up.

Then, a couple of days ago, he wrote to me and said he had not been a good husband to me. He wanted us to sit down and talk about the situation.

But I told him there was nothing to talk about.

Because the truth was simple: he stopped showing up for our relationship, so I stopped showing up too.

If you want a relationship with someone in Second Life, and you talk about how both people need to want it, then show up for that relationship. Show up the way the other person shows up for you. That is how you make something work. Not by saying the right things after you have already let the relationship starve. Not by coming back later with explanations when the damage has already been done.

He stopped showing up for me. He stopped showing up for us.

And when he did that, I stopped too.

Because I am not going to chase somebody who is clearly telling me, through silence and absence, that they do not want me. Sometimes people do not say the words out loud, but their actions say them anyway. And I have learned to listen to that.

So I told him clearly: you stopped showing up for our relationship. That is on you. Not on me.

If I was supposed to mean something to him, he would never have done that to me in the first place. He would not have disappeared from the relationship and then expected a conversation to fix what his absence already broke.

He wanted to sit down and talk, but I did not have time to sit there and listen to someone try to explain why they stopped showing up.

Because this is not something you can talk your way out of.

I could not care less what a person I call my partner is doing when he is not with me. I really could not care less. I am not sitting there trying to control every part of someone else’s Second Life, or their time, or their friendships, or what they do when they are not directly with me.

That is not what I demand from a person.

The only thing I demand is that they show up to our relationship.

Because every single relationship is different. Every connection has its own shape, its own purpose, its own meaning between the people inside it. And if you choose to be in that relationship, then you have to show up for the purpose of it.

You have to.

And when I say show up, I do not mean just logging in. I do not mean standing there, wearing the title, and thinking that is enough.

I mean take care of the relationship.

Do not let it fall apart while pretending you still want it. Do not let the other person sit there wondering where they stand with you. Do not let silence, distance, and half-effort become the thing that slowly destroys what you claimed mattered.

If that person means something to you, show it.

Act like it.

Make them feel like they are the only person in the world when they are with you. Not because you own them. Not because they own you. But because in that moment, in that relationship, in that connection, they should feel chosen.

They should feel wanted.

They should feel like you are actually there with them, not just physically present while emotionally checked out.

Take care of the fucking relationship.

Show up.

You cannot claim the title, take the comfort, enjoy the bond, and then disappear when it is time to actually be present. You cannot say someone matters to you and then act like showing up is optional.

Whatever the relationship is, show up for that.

Not for some perfect version of it. Not for what other people think it should look like. Not for the easy parts only.

Show up for the actual relationship you are in, with the actual person standing in front of you.

Because you do not lose someone by accident.

You lose them slowly, through every message you do not send. Every moment you choose distance instead of presence. Every time you let them wonder if they still matter to you. Every time you assume they will keep waiting, keep understanding, keep carrying the relationship by themselves.

And eventually, they stop.

Not because they stopped caring first.

But because you taught them how to live without you.

Regardless of what kind of relationship you choose to have in Second Life, or even outside of Second Life if you take it that far, you have to show up to your own fucking relationship with the other person.

That is the core of everything.

Show up.

He Didn’t Leave Second Life. He Left Me.

 

Today started like any other day.

I was just scrolling on Primfeed, not really thinking about anything in particular, just letting the feed pass by. And then, out of nowhere, I saw him.

A picture.

Posted two days ago.

In Second Life.

And everything in me just… stopped.

Because this is the same man I fell madly in love with back in December. The one who, only about a week into everything, told me he had to leave. Something had happened in his family, he said, and he needed to step away from Second Life for an extended period of time.

And I believed him.

Of course I did.

I supported him. I told him I understood. I told him I’d be here when he got back. I meant every word of it, too. There was no hesitation in me, no doubt. Just… care. Loyalty. Patience.

Then came the shock.

He removed me from his friends list.

At the time, I didn’t really know what to make of it. I told myself he was just going offline, stepping away from everything, dealing with whatever was happening in his real life. I didn’t question it the way I maybe should have. I just… accepted it.

But today changed that.

Seeing that picture, posted just two days ago, made something click in a way I can’t ignore anymore.

Because what I’ve been quietly thinking all along suddenly felt very clear.

He didn’t leave Second Life.

He left me.

And now I’m sitting here trying to make sense of that. Was it the time zone? Was I too intense? Did I care too much, too fast? I don’t even know. My mind keeps trying to find a reason that makes it easier to understand, something I can hold onto that explains why.

But the truth is, none of that actually matters as much as this one thing:

He was there.

He was online.

And he didn’t reach out to me.

Not a message. Not a word. Nothing.

Which makes it really hard to believe that what he told me back then was the truth.

Someone commented on one of my Primfeed posts that people in Second Life are just playing, that they don’t take anything seriously.

And maybe he’s right.

Because right now, it feels like I was the only one who wasn’t playing.

From now on, I don’t think I can trust it the same way. Not the words, not the promises. To a lot of people, it’s just a game. A place where you can be whatever you want, say whatever you want, and disappear whenever it suits you.

And I don’t think I belong in that version of it.

People can keep their fakeness, their half-truths, their easy exits.

I’m stepping out of that.

For now… I think I’d rather just stay by myself.

When I saw his picture, I went to his profile in Second Life and wrote:

Welcome back.

I’ll be very surprised if he writes back.

And if he doesn’t…

then I’ll know my instincts were right.

I Keep Meeting the Same Man in Different Bodies

 Hi everyone, it’s me, Tessa.

I just needed to come on here and clear my mind a little bit.

So the guy I talked about in my previous post… he’s done and dusted. And honestly, that turned out to be a good thing.

About a week later, I met someone new in Second Life. At first, it felt really good. The connection was there, the passion was there, and I actually liked it. It didn’t feel forced or weird. It just felt natural.

But pretty quickly, something started to feel off.

He was always there. The moment he logged in, he would be at my house, right next to me. It didn’t matter what I was doing, he was just there. And at first, it feels nice, because you think, okay, this person wants to be around me. But after a while, it stopped feeling nice and started feeling suffocating.

And for someone like me, who has been alone for almost two years, and who is polyamorous, that just doesn’t work. I don’t want someone glued to me like that. I want a partner, not a lapdog.

Another thing I noticed was how he kept asking me what I had been up to, over and over again, like he was trying to steer me into giving a specific kind of answer. It didn’t feel like normal curiosity. It felt like he was waiting for me to say that I had been fucking around with different people. But when I told him the truth, that I had been studying, taking care of Sophia, and just living my life, he just went, “oh.” And it wasn’t neutral. It sounded disappointed, like I hadn’t given him the answer he was looking for.

Then he disappeared.

I didn’t see him for a couple of days, and apparently he was sick. So when he came back, he told me he had logged in just to see me. And yeah, that sounds sweet, but at the same time, if you’re that sick, why are you even at the computer?

He asked me what I wanted to do, and I said we could go to a restaurant. So we walked there from my house. But as soon as we got there, it was obvious he wasn’t feeling good at all. He told me he wanted to go back home and lie down on top of me.

So we went back.

And I honestly expected him to log off and go to bed, because that’s what a normal person would do when they’re sick. Instead, he laid down with me in Second Life and then went to sleep in real life, leaving me sitting there alone at one or two in the morning.

And that’s when something hit me.

I’m not doing this.

I’ve done this before. I’ve sat there waiting for someone for years, three years of my life with someone who was abusive, and I’m not putting myself in that position again.

So I told him I was logging off, that I loved him, and that I would see him tomorrow, and then I left.

The next morning, he logged in again. I had left him in my bed naked, but now he was fully dressed. And I just sat there thinking, okay… so you were online after I left. Which is fine, but then you can’t have been that sick.

That’s where something shifted for me, because now it just didn’t add up anymore.

So I told him straight. If you’re sick, you should be in bed, not at the computer. And then there’s the crashing. Logging in, logging out, over and over again. And funny enough, it always seemed to happen during our more intimate moments.

So I told him clearly, until you fix that, I don’t want you near me.

He said he understood, and then he left.

And funny enough, after that, he was able to be online for seven hours straight without logging in and out.

So I just sat there thinking… okay, this is bullshit.

He left me alone after that, and he’s stayed away since. The only time he reached out was to ask how me and my daughter were doing. That was the moment I decided to be brutally honest with him.

You do know I’m polyamorous, right? There is no exclusivity between you and me, because that’s not how I work.

And I can’t be with someone who is submissive to me. I need a man who knows who he is. I need masculinity. I don’t want softness.

And he kept saying that he understood.

But I was just sitting there thinking… no, you don’t.

Because if you did, you would have read my profile. You would have seen it on my Primfeed. It’s literally one of the first things about me.

One thing that put me off even more was when he straight up asked me if I was into black guys. And I told him, that has nothing to do with it. Color has nothing to do with it. It’s about the mind of a person. And then he goes on to say that he had been looking at my Primfeed from earlier, back when I was, in his words, “a little more slutty.” And I just sat there, thinking… what? Are you serious?

I even went as far as taking down the pictures we had on Primfeed, because I don’t see the point in keeping them up when he doesn’t even acknowledge them publicly. He doesn’t like them, he doesn’t comment on them. He just tells me privately that he loves them, and that’s it. And yeah… I do miss him a little. But the reality is, there are just too many things about him that irritate me, and I can’t look past that.

The Weirdness of People in Second Life

 For the past couple of days, I’ve been wondering why people in Second Life are so weird.

Not in a funny way.
Not in a “haha, that’s quirky” kind of way.

Just… weird.

The kind of weird that makes you stop and think, what is actually going on here?

A couple of days ago, I went to a very popular beach in Second Life.

I already knew how it would go.
No one talks to me.
I sit there for hours.
I do something else on my computer while I just… exist.

That’s usually how it is.

But this time, something different happened.

I actually met someone.

And at first, it was nice.
We had a really pleasant interaction.
There was curiosity, a bit of connection… that feeling of discovering someone new.

And then it shifted.

In the middle of all of that, he started saying things like he wanted to be my dad.

That he felt protective of me.
That he wanted to take care of me.

And I remember thinking… okay.

I told him straight.
I’m not looking for a dad.
You can be caring and protective without me having to call you that.

But it didn’t stop there.

Because what he was really hinting at was something else entirely.

That I would be his daughter…
while still being in a relationship with him.

That was the first blow.

I remember thinking to myself…

please, please, please… don’t be one of those weird people. Please.

I kind of just brushed it off, what he was saying.

I tried to look past it.

We met again the day after.
And one thing led to another, and we had a good time.

And then he came back online in the middle of the night.

He said he couldn’t sleep.

I don’t even remember exactly how we got into it, but he started asking me why I like going to certain hotels in Second Life.

And I just told him the truth.
I like going to hotels because it’s nice.

And it didn’t stop there.

At one point, he asked if we could couple dance.

And then he asked me if I could stand up from my wheelchair so we could do it properly.

And I just sat there thinking…

if I stood up from my wheelchair,
that would defeat the entire purpose of me having one.

So I told him no.

I told him that if I dance,
I dance by going around in circles on the dance floor—

because that’s how I dance in real life.

And that’s when it really clicked for me.

Because underneath what he was saying…

he was asking me to be someone I’m not.
To change something fundamental about myself,
just to fit him better.

That was the second blow.

And then came the third and final blow.

He asked if I would be with someone else while he watched.

And that’s where my complete disconnection happened.

I said no, because that creates drama.

I know you like drama in your Second Life, but I don’t.

And he immediately pushed back.

“What makes you think I like drama?”

And I said… because it literally says so in your profile.
Under role-play.

And then he goes—

“Well, that’s just role-play. That’s where we make up storylines.”

And I just sat there.

Thinking…

okay… so you’re different people depending on your mood.

And by that point, I had already disconnected.

So I didn’t respond to that.

Because to me, that way of thinking feels like a kind of detachment.

Like you can just step in and out of things without them meaning anything.

And maybe that works for some people.

But for me…

If you start treating Second Life like that,
like something you can switch on and off depending on what you feel like that day—

then everything becomes a joke.

You see, for me, Second Life is a virtual world.

It’s just like real life…
just in a different form.

So I don’t get people that roleplay.

I don’t get it, because I don’t do that.

I just exist.

I’m me, 1,000% of the time.

I don’t put on a persona for other people to like me.
And I never will.

And then there’s the way some people talk.

Or text.

In third person.

And I just sit there thinking…

what are you doing?

Because to me, that doesn’t feel natural.
It doesn’t feel real.

It feels like you’re stepping away from yourself.
Like you’re turning yourself into a character instead of just… being a person.

And that’s where I disconnect.

No matter how much I like you,
or dislike you,
or whatever—

I disconnect.

Because for me,
you’re being something other than yourself.

I haven’t seen this guy in a couple of days now.

And honestly… it doesn’t bother me.

Because the moment things started going in that direction, I was already pulling away.

The first step was when he started talking about me being his daughter while still being in a relationship with him.

That alone was enough to make me stop and think.

And then the second step was when he asked me to stand up from my wheelchair so we could dance.

And the third step…

was when he asked me if I would be with someone else while he watched.

That’s when I fully disconnected.

Completely.

And what makes it even more frustrating is that I actually have it written in my profile.

Under my pics section.

It clearly says absolutely not.

So what he was hinting at…
is something I’ve already made very clear I’m not okay with.

Which means he didn’t read my profile properly.

And okay, I get it—
some people only read the first part.

But still.

Why would you ask someone that?

Why would you go there without even knowing where they stand?

Because to me…
that’s not normal behavior.

This is why I stay to myself.

Because every time I try to start a conversation with someone,
it eventually leads to the same thing.

They can’t stay on my level of thinking.

Something always gets twisted.
Something always goes off.

And I just sit there wondering why I even tried.

So at some point, you start asking yourself—

why would I invest my time and energy into that?

And then it turns into a bigger question.

Do normal people even exist anymore?

Normal people…
without all the weird tendencies.
Without the weird sexual behavior.

Where are they?

Where are the normal people from before social media?
From back in the day?

Where the fuck did they go?

Growing Beyond the World That Once Saved Me

 Hi everyone, it's me, Tessa, back at this again.

It's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote anything here, so I thought it was time for a little update.

The truth is, I don't really have that much to talk about when it comes to Second Life right now. Unfortunately, I still feel the same way about it as I have for the past year or so… and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

I'm starting to come to the realization that I may have actually outgrown Second Life.

And that feels strange to even say out loud.

When I first started this journey all those years ago, I never in a million years would have imagined that I would one day say something like that. Second Life literally saved my life at one point. It gave me a world to exist in, people to connect with, and a place where I could create when the real world felt very small.

But lately, nothing in Second Life is pulling me anymore.

Nothing is exciting. Nothing makes me want to log in and explore. Nothing gives me that spark that used to keep me there for hours.

Because of that, you haven’t really seen many updates, pictures, or anything like that from my Second Life lately. Simply because there hasn’t been anything that has inspired me enough to share.

Instead, my focus has shifted more and more toward my real life — and honestly, that’s exactly how it should be.

Because in my real life, I’ve found something that has become a huge passion for me.

Lately I’ve been deep diving into nutrition. Meal prep, food science, protein intake, hydration, supplements — all of it. I can spend hours reading about it, experimenting with it, and thinking about how food actually affects the body.

I even started an Instagram account dedicated to that world.

And the truth is, this is where my curiosity and energy live right now.

One thing I’ve realized about myself is that I need conversations that go deep. I need to be able to sit with someone and talk for hours about things like food science, nutrition, metabolism, protein, hydration — the kind of topics that most people don’t really think about.

That kind of intellectual curiosity is what energizes me.

And to be honest, it’s also something that has cost me friendships in my real life. Sometimes when I start talking about something I’m passionate about, people look at me like I’m speaking another language. Not because they’re bad people, but simply because they’re not interested in the same depth of discussion.

And I’ve started noticing the same thing happening in Second Life as well.

To give you an example of what I mean, something happened a couple of weeks ago that really made me stop and think.

I ended up on one of those dating apps inside Second Life. Yes, believe it or not, there are actually dating apps in there.

While scrolling through, I came across a guy I had talked to before. He had liked some of my pictures, so that opened up the possibility for us to talk again.

We started chatting, and pretty quickly he began telling me about how heartbroken he was. Apparently a woman had completely destroyed his heart, and because of that he had now decided that he was never going to fall in love again.

And I’m sitting there at my computer just… rolling my eyes.

Not because heartbreak isn’t real — of course it is — but because the way he talked about it felt so final. Like his entire life had ended because one relationship didn’t work out.

And I remember thinking to myself:

Come on, dude.

Where are the people who don’t give up like that?

Where are the people who have resilience?
Where are the people who keep growing instead of shutting down?

Because if I had reacted to things the way that guy did, I would have been out of Second Life within the first three months of being there.

Second Life can be brutal sometimes. People leave. Friendships fall apart. Relationships end. Communities change. If every disappointment was enough to make someone give up completely, nobody would stay there very long.

So while I understood that he was hurt, part of me was still sitting there thinking:

Okay, I get it. You're heartbroken. Maybe she wasn't the right woman to fall in love with. That happens.

But come on… level yourself up.

Use that moment as fuel.

Become someone better. Stronger. More interesting. More confident. Become the kind of person that makes someone look back later and think, “Wow… I really messed that up.”

That’s always been my way of moving forward.

When people hurt me, when people doubt me, when people walk away from me, I don’t collapse. I don’t give up.

I move forward.

I build something.

I become better.

And in the end, my way of dealing with it has always been very simple:

I make people regret what they did to me.

Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Not with revenge.

Just by becoming someone they underestimated.

Take this blog, for example.

I've been writing in it for fourteen years.

Fourteen years is a long time to keep anything alive on the internet, and yet here it is — still standing, still breathing, still very much mine.

And the reason for that is simple.

My blog has always been different.

It’s never just been about Second Life screenshots or “look of the day” posts, or promoting the latest store, or doing branding deals like most Second Life blogs tend to focus on.

I talk about Second Life, yes — but I also talk about my life inside that world. And I talk about my real life outside of it. I blend the two together, because for me they have never really been separate things.

Second Life is part of my story.

My real life is part of my story.

And this blog has always been the place where those worlds meet.

This blog is my platform.
This blog is my safe space.
This blog is my voice.

It’s my heart.
It’s my mind.

And that’s exactly why it’s one of a kind.

Now let me be clear about something.

This is not a goodbye.

I will — with almost one hundred percent certainty — never close this blog.

But it might evolve.

Because that’s what life does. It evolves.

I am deeply grateful for the years I’ve spent in Second Life. I’m grateful for the people I met there, the experiences I had, and the world that gave me a place to exist when I needed it the most.

Second Life saved my life once.

That is a truth I will never deny.

But now it feels like that chapter of my life has served another purpose as well.

It became a stepping stone.

A stepping stone that helped me grow, helped me find my voice, and helped me discover what truly drives me.

And now it’s leading me into the next chapter of my life.

And if you are one of the people who are still here, still reading this blog after fourteen years…

Thank you.

Truly, from the bottom of my heart — thank you.

Logging Out Quietly

 Hello everyone, it’s me — Tessa.

I just wanted to give you a little update on where my life is right now, and where I stand with Second Life today as well. The last blog post wasn’t positive at all, and honestly not something I wanted to write — but it felt like something I needed to say.

Um… where do I even start?

It feels like the moment I decided to be in my wheelchair full-time in Second Life — because that is my truth in real life — I became a ghost. I stopped being a person to everyone. I’m there, I exist… but at the same time I don’t, because nobody — and I mean nobody — talks to me.

Because of that, and because of what happened in my last blog post, I’ve slowly and quietly stepped away from Second Life.
I mean… what’s the point? People act like I’m not there, like they can’t see me. I have four friends on my list, and one of them is my own alt account that I use for saving my Lindens.

I’ve honestly talked to my real-life husband about shutting Second Life down permanently. He’s the one who stopped me — mostly because of the amount of money I’ve invested into this platform over the last fifteen years… probably millions in my own currency. So even though my account — and my life there — is becoming more and more dormant, he doesn’t want me to delete it. Not because he thinks I’ll regret it emotionally, but because of the sheer value I’ve poured into it over the years. His view is simple: maybe it’s better to just stop logging in… but keep the account alive.

When I decided to be in my wheelchair one hundred percent of the time in Second Life, I knew I might become lonely. I knew I might stop being seen as the “sexy short girl next door.” I was ready for distance… but I wasn’t ready for the loneliness — the complete, heavy isolation from people.

It’s not because I stopped going out. I show up. I exist in the world.
But people don’t really see me. They don’t acknowledge me. They don’t even talk to me.

It feels like living another life layered on top of my real one… and it’s scary to realize that the same things I fight against every day in real life are now following me into Second Life too. Only there, it feels more clinical — more direct, more in your face. Like you become something people don’t want to touch… something they don’t want to talk to. Like you turn into an object in a room full of people — and little by little, you just stop existing to them.

If someone in Second Life could actually experience the shock — the shift in how people see you when you go from a walking avatar to being in a wheelchair — I wish they could feel that change for themselves. Because you who are reading this might think it’s not that big of a deal, or that it’s not that deep.

But it is deep.

It hits your confidence. It hits everything about you when you’re used to people talking to you the moment you walk into a room… and then suddenly there’s nothing. Just silence.

And yes, I know I was the one who started cleaning my friends list. But realizing that nobody — absolutely nobody — came back and asked why… that says a lot.

That realization made me question every single person I ever knew in Second Life. When connections feel this light, it starts to feel like a place filled with people hiding behind their screens — people who don’t know how to exist in the real world and choose the safer distance of a computer instead. And honestly… that realization feels a little crazy to me.

Your next question might be: how did I go from being in Second Life eight to twelve — sometimes even twenty-four — hours a day… to not logging in at all?

Honestly, the answer is simple.

I don’t want to surround myself with people who feel fake or disconnected. I’d rather be in the real world — making real connections, making people laugh, diving deep into the interests I actually want to grow in. That feels more meaningful to me than sitting in my home in Second Life for hours, only to log out after another day of silence.

That isn’t living. And as far as we know, we only get one physical life… and I’ve decided I want to live mine.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been deep-diving into nutrition — not just surface-level research, but really trying to understand how food actually affects the body. Almost down to a microscopic level. The discoveries I’ve made have been really eye-opening. Part of it is connected to the medication I’m on — it’s a lifelong treatment, and I won’t go deeper into that — but the level of clarity, precision, and discipline it’s given me has been honestly mind-blowing.

I’ve been researching calorie intake, macro intake, and what those things actually do inside the body. And when you really start to understand what food plus body equals… you begin to see things differently.

So believe it or not, food and nutrition have become one of my biggest passions in life — maybe even the biggest. And honestly, that’s part of why I’ve been able to stay away from Second Life. It just doesn’t give me anything anymore. Sitting there for hours in silence gives me nothing. Nobody misses me. Nobody talks to me. Nobody wonders where I am. And when you realize that, it becomes easier to just turn it off.

Even the person I’ve been partnered with for five or six years — even that connection feels different now. The last time I saw him was before Christmas, and things happened in the bedroom… but he didn’t acknowledge my wheelchair, and he didn’t acknowledge that I wanted closeness. It felt rushed, disconnected, like he just wanted it over with. So I logged off, because I’m not going to waste my time feeling invisible.

If someone who has been with me for years — who has already seen me in a wheelchair before — can treat me like that, then something has changed. And when he comes back, there’s going to be a wake-up call.

So I guess I have a question for you — if you were the one living through everything I’ve just shared… would you stay in Second Life?

I don’t think so.

My life isn’t about Second Life anymore. And if you had asked me less than a year ago where I’d be today, I never would’ve imagined myself saying that. But that’s where life has taken me. And honestly, I can’t even say that I miss it. What is there to miss? Four people on a friends list?

The only person I miss is the one I wrote about in my previous blog post — the one who had to leave. That’s the only absence that still feels real to me, the only person I wish could come back. And since he removed me from his friends list, who even knows if he’s back now, just choosing not to tell me. I don’t know. But that’s the only connection that still lingers.

So if my blog becomes quieter, that’s why. I’m not active in Second Life anymore, and without that world… there isn’t much to write about.

I’ve even stopped taking pictures of myself. I used to have over three thousand photos on Flickr before I closed the account. Photography used to be a daily thing for me — and now I had to be reminded to renew Photoshop because I hadn’t opened it in over two months.

That’s how disconnected I am right now.

And when people do reach out, it often feels like they just want to unload their problems or tell me about heartbreaks I don’t have the energy to carry anymore.

So yeah… at the moment, Second Life feels almost non-existent.
Nothing really happens — except the occasional “hello, I’m your neighbor,” and honestly…

…my reaction is just, so? *Logs out*

/Tessa