I love being loud with people in VR.

I tend to be a loud ass person.

It's unusual for me to be loud because I typically talk very quiet. Like, stupidly quiet. I've been told I could probably voice-act a mouse if I really tried. But goddamit I can be loud.

I've gotten complaints from my family that I tend to be loud as hell when it's late at night. That absolutely sucks because currently being loud in the middle of the night while inside VR is like, the cheapest way to do any of that. Going to a bar or a nightclub costs a dickload of time to get to the car, drive over to a club, costs some money depending on if you wanna get drinks or something or have to pay any cover fees to get into the dance floor, not to mention you gotta worry about where you're parking or being dropped off at the bus station and make sure you're not mugged or manipulated randomly by weirdos on the street. If they wanna ensure I can be loud somewhere else IRL where it's appropriate, they're more than welcome to pay all the necessary costs I'd have to bear. But to be honest, they can suck my dick because I get a lot more fun in VR than I do in a lot of VR clubs.

But tbh that's just my social anxiety talking.

Where I live, there are no sidewalks, and it's acre-minimum suburban housing around me. The surroundings are, to be frank, absolutely fucking boring. I think the local social joints either cater to middle-aged parents or their teenage kids sneaking out of their houses. Both of them consuming alcohol there, of course. There's also not a lot of crosswalks out here too, so if you wanted to cross the street by foot you'd pretty much be vulnerable to oncoming traffic if you're not careful. I mean, we at least have bike lanes, but still...

The upsides about living in the fancy 'burbs though is that one can be loud and not many other people outside the home are gonna hear what you're gonna say or scream out. Not that I'm yelling incredibly terrible insults or slurs or anything, but there is a privileged freedom you get from this kinda living arrangement.

So, I'm basically on an island filled with manicured grass and gardens, the sea between each island subsituted by the almighty PROPERTY LINE™.

Thus constitutes the green prison that I reside in, that just so happens to only be “relatively safe” by submitting all of your travel desires by the almighty CAR™, and you must tribute a considerable sum of money to feed it with gasoline and tribute a fee to the state to drive it registered and tribute more money every month to private fiefdoms who exist to benefit off their legal right to basically get you in trouble if you don't give them money and in return they can cover 100% of your accident costs 100% of the time, 35% of the time.

So considering I'd basically have to be a submissive slut to my car and a pet to be financially gangbanged by the oil industry, the insurance companies, and the state; with all this, it's natural for someone like me—who values independence stupidly high—to absolutely minimize my involvement in this ridiculous game, all so that I may have a crumb of my social needs consumed when I could literally get a WHOLE LOAF of social interaction by just using my computer, Social VR, and the internet and stay in my room the entire time.

The biggest reason why I'm loud in my room in the middle of the night is because it's infinitely cheaper and less resource-intensive than the privilege of driving on the roads at dangerously fast speeds in the hope of having a good time. Out in meatspace, there's a dickload of risk in just existing outside. In the virtual world, it's as easy as walking from my bed to my computer desk.

Now, there's a couple things that could help fix this predicament of mine. A long-term fix involves revolutionizing the way people transport themselves in the suburbs by prioritizing the building of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, like having sidewalks at bare minimum, but also ensuring every resident can access places like work and grocery stores within a reasonable walking distance. A short-term fix would be more of me actually getting my ass outside and earning enough cash to move to a neighborhood that already implemented the long-term fixes previously mentioned.

But considering either of those take up way more energy than just continuing what I'm doing, just staying in my room and socializing via VR and internet, then I should be fine, right? Right? Because finding anyone with the same temperaments as my friends I've met through VR in my local area is stupidly hard and I wouldn't wanna hang out with any of them no matter how hard I try, right?

idk tho but until an asteroid crashes or somethin i'll take pride in being loud, and at the same time, I'll tone it down a bit if I'm asked to by family. Because I know damn well I'll just go right back to being loud again. Because I always do, and that's just a part of me. Deal with it.