That is interesting observation.
After reading the article about the effect of SL on marriages I decided to have a talk with my friend.
I am not going to go into all of that here. But he made an observation that was interesting. He has 2 SL avatars. One male and one female. Both are on the "free" account so, like you wrote, no money and no real guidance on how to do things.
Within a couple of days, male avatars were offering to help my friend's female avatar. The male avatars were very freindly and gave "her" free Linden dollars (the SL currency), offered "her" a free apartment to "stay," gave "her" free clothing, the works. All of that friend's female avatar had to "do" was be nice and friendly to these male avatars.
The male avatars also helped my fried's female avatar by teaching "her" how to move, how to do stuff, how to change clothing, etc.
On the other hand, his male avatar has pretty much languished and not be able to do much of anything. Like you found out: "no money = no fun" and "no money = no females."
Come to think about it, SL is a lot like real life!
Incidentally, my friend has agreed to see a doctor about his addiction. His wife is happy and so are his kids.