I was reading through the bulletins the other day, and I saw a post that I have seen before.  Nope, not even one that you repost, not the type that are the different surveys, but one I have seen in different forms from different users.  It is one of a few posts that I have seen that several people cycle through.  My friend had posted that he was going to not be in RLC as much anymore, due to personal reasons.  For the people who have been in RLC for awhile, I am sure you have seen it.  This is usually the end of a cycle, but it is a good end.

The cycle goes like this:

• New user, in awe of what RLC is all about - is in RLC for 4-8 (or more) hours a day
• Meets great new people, makes a lot of friends.  Maybe meets one in RL
• Drama starts with them (see my previous post on drama)
• Drama gets bad, and the person leaves RLC for good
• They come back
• They keep good friends, stays on for hours and hours again
• User realizes that their real life is deteriorating, and needs to get back on track.
• User lives in Real Life and RLC happily

I am not sure how many people really go through this cycle, or even if the people who do, go through the entire cycle.  Again, I can make up some numbers, but I won't this time!  lol.  I just simply have no clue.  I have gone through the entire cycle (maybe there is more I have not seen, yet).  I have seen no less than 10 of my friends go through it.  I pretty much have lost count.  I still have some friends in varying stages of it.  It even depends on the individual person on the length of time they go through this cycle.

So, the first three phases can take from one week to several months to go through.  It pretty much depends on the individual, and their friends.  If you are lucky to get in with the right friends, then they might go almost a year without the drama.  Or, they have good enough friends who just don't create any problems.

Once the drama starts, a lot of people's emotions start taking over, and things usually just snowballs and gets worse and worse.  Then a boiling point is reached, and the person realizes that RLC is a virtual world.  They don't need to log in.  So, they send a bulletin in the Utherverse Social Center stating something to the affect that RLC can kiss off, and they are not coming back ever.  With me, it was a tad different.  I had some drama, and I got through it mostly ok.  I had to leave RLC for several months because of Internet connection problems.  Once those problems were resolved, I got back in.  Since I have been back in, I have been excellent at avoiding drama.

Again, I don't know any specific numbers, but I have seen a majority of the people who leave, because of drama, come back.  Some people don't even last a day, some people come back several weeks later.  My opinion on this is that this time period allows the situation to cool down.  People get their heads back into reality.  Again, my situation was that I could get back on RLC! :)

Once they get back and able to control the drama situation, then they start having fun.  And it is so much fun, they start spending a lot of time in RLC.  Sometimes they will spend an entire day in there.  Meeting friend after friend at different times, one after the other.  The next thing they know, they have been on for 8 or 10 hours.  Can you say an 'addiction'?

The problem with that, is that RL stuff gets put on the back burner.  Family and loved ones are taking a back seat to RLC, and that is usually a bad thing.  I have seen marriages go through a lot of issues because of this.  Work starts to suffer, and many other bad things can happen.  Usually something happens in real life that shows the person that there is a problem.  Once they see it, they realize they need to chill out on RLC.  With me, my business was suffering, as I bill by the hour, and that meant I was billing fewer hours. 

You can have a good balance with RLC and RL, it just takes some discipline.  You may lose RLC friends, simply because of the less time they are on, and the time of day that some of their friends can get on, too.  The point is, everyone has to learn how to balance RLC and RL.  As long as RLC NEVER becomes your entire life (unless you are one of the programmers).

I hope to see you all in RLC (but not too much)
Brad