People

I am fairly new to the online community. I have spent about 9 months now getting to know various "people" online and have decided that despite the relative anonymity cyberspace provides, most posters/bloggers seem to put their real selves out there. I find this interesting, since I don't.

I relish my online alter ego. I have myspace and FB accounts, and blog under this name all over the basketball forums. You can figure out what I am saying and some of "who I am" if you google all my posts, but an awful lot of ME is simply not present. I enjoy the anonymity the online community provides me...I feel much freer for it. I bite my tongue a 100 times a day, but online, I don't really have to. Why? Because you don't know me, and I won't see you in my everyday life. If I tell you what I really think, I won't have any real-life consequences for it. Today, I sat in a mandatory meeting for my silly job and suffered through 3 hours of grown women (all older than me) sitting next to me, talking and giggling throughout our presentation. It was like being in middle school or something. SO RUDE! The speaker noticed, but like me, didn't say anything, perhaps not wanting to embarrass them. All I could think was that I wanted to tell them to shut it! But I just couldn't do it. What if they are friends with certain people in the "office"? What if they decide to really take offense and harass me on a daily basis? What if they gang up on me and report fictitious offenses to our supervisor? Or worse, what if they decide to directly confront me, in an aggressive way? I would lose my job and go to jail....just completely irresponsible. I mean, these are things I have seen happen before. Speaking out and standing up for principles is all fine and well, but it can have consequences that are detrimental to real life, money, home, and family.

Anyway, I find a small release in being EwoynAmarie, shield-maiden of Rohan and mother of a great Elf. I get to hide within her persona and say things I otherwise would not. Cowardice? Oh, perhaps....but it's honest cowardice. I have no illusions about who I am in real life, or online, or about what I doing. Do you? Probably you do. After all, most people cannot see beyond their own nose and people are people whether they be directly in front of you in flesh and blood, or similarly hiding being an alter-ego :)