Mavis -> RE: FAKES (10/15/2006 2:42:46 PM)
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yanno, i must be really weird. i really haven't had a problem with fakes. i've been online since 1990, my first service was Delphi. and my first post was all capped "AM I ONLINE? CAN YOU SEE ME?" on an irc channel, i believe. i "progressed" to Prodigy, then landed a job with AOL in 1993. (real pay! not chat guide volunteer) So if anyone could have run up some serious fake-time, i would think i should have. Maybe i'm not diligent enough. What i have found are people that want completely diffeent things out of online discussions, a lot that want to play a personna they can't face in real life, a lot who see the world very differently from the way i do, and a lot who see it as a quick way to a green card in the land of plenty. Bless them, if i lived in some of those places, i might do the exact same thing. (Although i wonder if every computer sold in Nigeria comes pre-loaded with AOL, and the browser has Alt.com, AdultFriendFinder and CastleRelam.com bookmarked?) i have enjoyed most of my discussions, and a lot of friends, i will never know if they are really 45 year old mothers of 4, or 60 year old cross dressers... and you know what? Unless i was wanting to have an offline relationship with those people, it doesn't matter. i've enjoyed the conversations. Connecting with someone who isn't who you think that are is no different from a married women who finds out at 70 that her husband never really believed in the church, although they made mass faithfully for 45 years. Because she didn't know he didn't believe, but he acted like he did, was her life conducted any differently? Probably not. Online isn't the only place we interact with people who don't know who they are. Read http://www.midlifewivesclub.com/ <---- scarey shit! but quite helpful. The only time it matters is when you're trying to engage in a fully rounded relationship, and that should include offline interactions. But even then, it's no more guarenteed that person knows who they are offline than they do when they're online. <shrug>
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