A Role Player Diary: How it All Began.

Beneath our day to day lives and what we consider as common and real, there’s an underworld culture that not many know about: Role Play. With thousands of members from all over the world, this “perfect” reality just keeps growing. We all have different lives and come from different backgrounds, yet that one thing we share brought us together: We all have something in our reality we’re trying to escape from.

Having moved from Dominican Republic when I was 18 and leaving everything I knew and care about behind, I suddenly felt lost and had no idea how to deal. I guess it hit me harder than I expected. I started spending most of my time online, specifically on Facebook, trying to stay connected with them and to pretend I was still there, right by their side. Somehow I found myself joining a community that had made a home of that social network, and after just a couple days I was already someone else entirely: Different name, different face and body, an entire world of possibilities lying right in front of me, and I liked it. Of course, I was only focusing on everything I had lost and not what I was gaining. Creating a new profile (You could choose whoever you wanted, from a famous singer, actress, a fictional character or even create one new all together), joining a group (Or Family, as it is referred to), and picking a new persona (Or avatar) was certainly easier than dealing with a reality I didn’t feel comfortable with anymore, and in there, I could be whatever I wanted to.

What I didn’t know at that time is how deep I was gonna fall under and for how I long I was going to be detached from everything and everyone around me. Joining was just the beginning.

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To be continued.