I had the coolest interview recently. The gang from Metanomics invited me to take part in the Metanomics Community Forum yesterday “in world” where I spent an hour in open conversation with around 35+ folks in world, On My Mind with Chris Abraham – Community Forum.

I loved it because everyone on Second Life is bright, passionate, curious, open, and smart — fellow nerds, maybe. What made my day, however, was that I was being interviewed as though I were from an alien culture!

The folks from Second Life were basically asking me, in so many ways, what people from my world were like. I wasn’t sure if they were winding me up, but some of the folks who were engaging with me were so naturalized into their True Home and True Life on Second Life that they were not too terribly interested in exploring “my world.”

Who would have expected Virtual World jingoism? Snobbery? It sort of felt like the dinner parties I attended in Berlin: folks were so curious as to my life in den USA. My German friends were super-curious about Amerika but a little appalled by my President, my culture, my passtimes, my priorities, my education, my lack of safety net, etc.

They were fascinated and curious — just like the sexy gang of hyper-sexy hotties and furries who populated my audience. I was sort of tempted to ask them to take me to their leader. It was intense. Most of them live in multiple virtual worlds and many of them expatriated into Second Life in not long after Second Life launched in 2003 — some of them have been living in virtual worlds for more than a decade.

When you expatriate to another culture — be it Berlin or Second Life — you really lose touch with your mother culture. You have fond memories of your past and you might feel sentimental some times, but that is the past and you can’t go home again, right?

And from what I understand, Second Life is a first home for many people. While I was expatriated in Berlin, I felt the same way: I was able to reinvent myself, I was able to explore myself outside of the straight jacket of my friends and family “at home” and while I am in Berlin, I can be a little more charming, a little more sexy, and a little more interesting.

In the real world of Arlington, VA, and Washington, DC, people know me so if I show up acting like “a douche” or “weird” or even “not my age,” then I might feel very self-conscious.

And, in Berlin, I am cool — at least to me — I am an expatriate who has a virtual company of employees around the world — my confidence is very high and I am anything and everything that I say about myself, at least for a while.

It is like the opportunity you had on your first day at college or your first day at high school. So, I really understand Second Life — and virtual worlds — a little more now.

And this is not just Second Life — people are as passionate about World of Warcraft (WoW) and Everquest and the rest of them.

People are this passionate about their textual virtual communities as well. I think back and remember how real my enculturation was in The Meta Network (tmn.com) and to a lesser degree Howard Rheingold‘s Brainstorms (tmn.com was my first online home — my alma mater, if you will — my college home while Brainstorms was like my grad school.

You’re always more connected to your college, right?) So, more and more, I get it — listen to and watch the event embedded above and I think you’ll start to get it as well. I can’t — and refuse to — speak on their behalf but they do an amazing job of addressing what it is like to live a their “choosen life” on Second Life.