There is a lot of talk online about trust, about believing in the words of someone you have never met ‘in the flesh’ and people feeling that they can’t trust words as they used to…
I think I’m more truthful, more me online. I speak more clearly through my keyboard than I do when faced with an emotive subject face to face with someone. I can talk about difficult things on icq, without the other person seeing my tears. I can rant about something I believe in on usenet without getting upset and stumbling over my words.
I have never had any kind of ‘online persona’. I have always just been rachel, or rachbeth (a combination of mine and the Small Person’s Christian names). My online friends are just friends I happened to meet online, rather than in the pub or at work. I don’t treat them differently because we talk using a telnet client, icq or email rather than meet for coffee or chat on the phone.
Drew and I met online, I have recommended for jobs and ended up working with people I met online… these are real life relationships, so why would I jeapordise the chances of meeting great friends by pretending to be someone I wasn’t?
I can understand why one might post under a pseudonym when asking for advice in a forum on a personal issue, but to build an online relationship with a person or a group of people based on total fiction seems weird to me.
Relationships, however they are made, must be based on truth, honesty and trust – don’t they?