My name is Argent Bury, and I am a Digital Person.  I exist only in Second Life.  You can not and will not ever meet me in First Life...ever. 

I choose to come here and live wholly in this world, not to use it as an extension of First Life.  It is not the only way to live here, but it is my way.

You will never know the "real" me, except as part of what I present here.  Some things can not be faked, after all.  I type in Japanese quite well, I write bad sci-fi, stuff like that.  And unless I'm the greatest actor in the world, I can't be "on" all the time, so you're going to get both good and bad parts of my personality.

I could be black or white, gay or straight, male or female, married or single, young or old.  I could be a 300 pound guy living in his mom's basement, or I could be his mom.  I could be a husband sneaking in when the wife's away, or a neglected housewife desperate for some companionship. You will never know.

I could be totally sincere about every word I say here and every feeling I feel.  Or things could be kind of a hazy dream that passes away when I walk away from the keyboard.  I could be a delusional solipsistic roleplayer, treating you all as NPCs.  I could even be a sick and malicious griefer who laughs with glee with every word I type, playing you all for fools.  I want to tell you I am sincere, although SL feelings are not as strong as RL feelings for me, but you don't even have to believe that...I could be lying through my teeth.

And guess what...you could be too.  How can I be sure?  Are you really a woman?  I need to hear your voice.  Do you really look like that?  I need to see your photo.  Are you really crying right now?  I need to see you on cam.  How do I know you're really like that in RL?  I need to meet you in person.  You could still be hiding things from me, playing me for a fool.  I need to live with you for a few years to know for sure.  Still, I'm not sure...what should I do?

The question here at the base of all this is: How do we trust people, how far do we trust them, and what do we base that trust on? 

For me personally, I'm going to base my trust in you on the things you say and do in this world, and nothing else.  And...selfish as it is, I hope you'll do the same for me. Second Life IS my real world, my only world.  The only "you" I see is the you right in front of me, for better or for worse.  Sometimes it will get me hurt, sometimes it will pay off, but it's the way I hope people will judge me, so it's the way I will judge them.

Not all of you have that luxury, and I fully understand that.  You are here to find a companion to bring home to First Life and have to know personal details about the meat body on the other end, or your moral code requires that you know something about the real lives of the people you interact with, or you feel you have to know in some mystical way exactly what the person on the other end of the narrow connection here is feeling, or maybe it simply takes more to gain your trust.  Given your circumstances, these are wise decisions, which I respect.  You are free to distrust me.  You are free to mute me.  If you own land you are free to ban me.  You need no permission to do these things to me, and if you do you can consider this post to be that permission.

But at the same time you can expect me to live by my code, and to judge you by my standards and not yours. There are others like me out there, "residents" of this world in the purest sense.  You can expect me to seek them out, to try and build a community with them, and to fight for our rights when I feel they are impinged upon.  And...because I am weary of war and strife...you can expect me to seek peace and understanding and reconciliation, even in the face of anger and ignorance.

This is my code, this is my creed, this is my life.

My name is Argent Bury, and I am a Digital Person.