I just got on live and I will have to say, it's a little intimidating.  I will start off by saying I am usually a quiet person.  Once I get to know people, I become very outgoing.  Having just started off on live, I don't have a lot of friends yet.  I went on live the other day to play Halo 2.  I got wasted.  I have almost finished the game playing by myself so I thought I could go online and play.  Wrong!  If I got 2-3 kills a game, I had a good game.  Now I know that you have to practice but getting wasted left and right didn't allow me much practice time.  Then I hooked up with a guy who had sent me a friend's request.  Nomadx68, I owe you a big thanks.  He played a few games with me and gave me some good words of wisdom.  I then met up with a guy I work with.  Zitpopper is a guy that I teach with who I didn't even know was a gamer until I ran ito him at Walmart one day.  I was online a couple of nights ago and he invited me to play Gears of War with him and some of his buddies.  They took a complete newby like myself on their team and we played and I had a ball.  Now these guys play together all the time and they were having a blast together.  This was what I am looking for.  They made me feel at home.  Our team ended up getting beat and I am sure I was a big reason for that but they never said a word.  Before this, I was starting to wonder if I had made a mistake with this whole online thing.  I believe after I find the right friends and get a little experience, I am going to love online play.