Living Two Lives

[Nihilego]

Do you tend to separate your online and offline lives? You might avoid offline friends talking to online friends, for example. You might like to use a separate Msn or Email for online friends. Or you may not even let offline people know that you have an online life.

Or, you might not even live two lives and completely integrate the two, happy to meet online friends offline, introduce online and offline friends to each other regularly, and take pride in talking about your online life to offline friends.

How do you work with your online and offline life?

 

[Kevin]

Yep. I use a different email so that I can keep my life separate from PC and other websites like Facebook or whatever.

It'd be awkward if someone here was chatting with my friend on this forum. Heck, it'd be awkward if someone from my school had a PC account. ;_;

 

[Ayselipera]

Yeah I keep everything pretty separate. The only person in my real life who knows about my "online life" would be one of my cousins that I'm really close with. Besides that I don't see the need to mix the two and I really prefer not to. Although I did have one person from online talk to someone in my real life, but I consider them close and don't see the need to make it so separate for them. Besides that I don't plan on letting anyone else I know online get that close to me.

 

[Oryx]

I don't keep them separate really, but I'm still not too comfortable with the "meet someone online irl" thing...did it once, it was exceedingly awkward. But I do talk about my online life to my boyfriend and have no problem telling people online about my offline life. I don't see an issue with adding people I trust to my Facebook and such either.

 

[Nick]

I would have preferred if I had separated them earlier on in my time on the internet, but I didn't do that. My MSN address is my personal address that I give out for absolutely everything; internet forum registrations, Facebook, college things, applications for jobs, etc. A simple Google search from anyone I know offline will find my online life, and I'm not entirely closed off in letting people know what happens in my offline life online, and the other way around (most of the time!)

 

[Ultraviolence]

I used to do it all separate, but know my person MSN, Facebook and Phone all have off and online friends.

 

[Rogue planet]

No I don't. Although I wouldn't let just anybody from online know everything about my real life, I'm still open about 90% of it. I'm quite happy to let irl people know about my online lurkings. I have nothing to lose, why hide it? If people are going to judge me about being on a Pokemon forum then screw them. The irl friends I care about the most play Pokemon as well anyway.

 

[Shining Raichu]

I don't mind if online friends know about my real life, but I keep my real life people the hell away from my online life. Online is like my sacred place where I can go to get away from them, and it would be very annoying if they were to follow me here.

 

[Domo Genesis]

I use the same e-mails for everything. It's just easier.

 

[2Cool4Mewtwo]

I do. Actually most of my friends do and they admitted it without problem (including myself). We see each others IRL, and that's enough as is.

 

[Percy Thrillington]

i used to care but the truth of the matter is that i am just so cool irl that if my friends found out i posted on a pokemon forum when i was younger they'd just be like, 'that's cool i guess.' it's part down to having a great nonchalant circle of friends and the other part is me usually not giving a damn about anything to do with them unless i can make a hilarious joke out of it or exploit it for personal gain.

that said i would probably never add anyone from pc on facebook. there's another forum i'm on where all of my friends on it are my friends on facebook but they have a different vibe. so yeah for the most part i'd never like, you know, introduce online friends to pc pals. there's just no point. i'm entertaining enough for my friends as it is.

 

[Sammi]

Somewhat. I don't talk to my irl friends about what I do on the Internet, but that's simply out of laziness. I'd have to explain forums and moderators and junk and I just don't feel like it, not for something that'll just bore them.

I'm open to the idea of telling others, and if there was ever a super appropriate time for it I'd explain. But until then they'll be separate just because I'm a lazy bum as always. :D

On the flip side, the only thing I won't let my Internet friends have is my Facebook (minus my bff). I should get a different e-mail for it because I still get people from PC trying to add me. The downside of using one e-mail for everything. -_-;

 

[PlatinumDude]

I keep my online and offline lives separate. I don't tell my offline friends exactly what I do online.

 

[Patatas Fritas]

I dont like to seperate my online life from my offline life, I'm often discussing with offline friends what's been going on and things and I've introduced a couple of people too my online friends and they've introduced me to theirs.

I'm up for meeting online people in real life if I've known them a while, have seen a fair amount of photo's of them and trust them. But it's not likely unless I've (at the very least) heard their voice as well and preferably seen them on video..

So yeah, they're not too seperate things for me, they're just people I happen to know.

 

[Ho-Oh]

Uhh let's see, online friends know about offline life, but offline life doesn't know about online life mainly because whenever they ask in those "get to know people" things, I'm somewhat not really all for like:

"So what do you do in your spare time?"
"Post around and moderate a Pokemon forum, nothing journalism related there!"

...yeaaah. So as a result I just say I go on websites and look up news lool totally not true but SHOULD be true. Oh and um, family, yeah I don't really tell them about my online life until they realise something's up and then I tell them parts eventually, and I have a feeling I'll probably need to tell them soon if a certain plan for something fails. :x

 

[Pyrax]

I separate my offline and online lives, the only exception is msn and facebook.
Of course, I don't tell my offline friends about my online habits.

 

[Elite Overlord LeSabre™]

My offline and online lives are pretty much separate. I take care not to reveal my real name on forums and I like to keep my real identity a bit of a mystery.

Facebook is an exception, and I have posted stuff on PC (especially my blog) where if you look hard enough you can find links to my RL alter ego, but I like to keep the two separate for the most part.

 

[Kikaito plush]

my Online life and out life are separate I even use my OC name on FB

 

[Charizard★]

I keep my online and offline life separately. Except for one of my email addresses, but that one's pretty old so I don't really use it anymore.

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

I try and do this, but end up failing. For a while, I didn't have any family members on Facebook, as I wanted to keep my (offline) friend-stuff away from family. Now I have my brother and a few cousins, but it still weirds me out a little bit. For the more general stuff of keeping online/offline stuff separate, I guess I do it without thinking. No one in my offline world knows about the stuff I do on PC, or even my Twitter account. On the other hand, most people on PC (even people I'd consider friends) don't know about a lot of my offline activities. It's not a dichotomy I rigidly stick to; it's just something I instinctively do.