Are you who you are?

I see no use in pretending being what I am not. Liars must have very good memory for not being caught on incoherence.

Actually, my real and virtual identities are pretty close. I try to choose my words carefully in both realms. And my interests are definitely the same...

I think age has a lot to do with it, on other boards you would always find 15 year old kids pretending to be someone their not.

Pretty close

Interesting question! I have two bad habits which conspire to keep me on the straight and narrow, usually -- a tendency to spill a lot of personal info (i.e. my husband and I met in a housing co-op) and a terrible memory for what I have said online. So rather than making up some story and trying to stick to it, I find it simpler to just go with the truth.

Oh, was typing while the other responses snuck in -- I agree with steissd about liars having a good memory.

15 year old kids look for girls, this explains their desperate attempts to make impression. We have no kids here, so I do not think that there may be many liars and impostors on the A2K.

They exist, though -- they're usually sussed out pretty quickly. I always imagine them with post-its all over their monitor: "Make $150,000 a year." "Drive a Porsche." "Have a Ph.D in Biochemistry." Etc.

HAHAHA I learned that in grade six, My poor memory keeps me from being a good lier.

Well, commercial hoaxes are being usually spread not by small kids but by adult cons.

I'm pretty much the same.

You know, make $150,000 a year, drive a Porsche, have a Ph.D in Biochemistry.

What you read is pretty much what you get. As Popeye said, "I yam what I yam."

Sozobe - Yeah lol - I tried it on a stock site - I mean I tried to maintain 2 id's - boy was it very difficult, only lasted about 2 days.

I'd have to say my "virtual" personality and my everyday personality is pretty close. I'm a bit more shy and less articulate in person though. Expressing my opinions face to face is a bit more difficult for me then typing them out. Time to gather my thoughts and such.

I am the same here on a2k as in regular life, same faults and virtues. Maybe I am older and tireder...but I seem to have grown comfortable with myself, especially in the last decade. Funny, Roberta, when I saw this question, I thought "I yam what I yam" and you went and posted it, great minds, eh?

Welcome to a2k, cinderwolf...and this was a good question!

I think I'm probably more open about myself in writing than in person, most likely because nobody really knows who I am, but I'm funnier in person than in print.

Midnight makes a point well taken for me, I'm very verbally articulate - since this is most of what I do, and in writing less articulate. I can tell you this is true and sometimes frustrates me.

I have revealed quite a bit about myself online and tend not to do so face-to-face. I am a social person but I really have to trust live people to let them in. I can do that more easily here online because I am anonymous pretty much and don't worry quite so much if you guys judge me. I do think I am more polite online because I can be quite a curser and I hold that back a bit. In fact I've had to hold it back quite a bit in real life too, since it is not really socially acceptable here in America. I don't mean disrespect or meanness, it is my personality to be a wee bit vulgar since that is the social environment I grew up in - in fact it's considered colorful to swear at each other and can engender warm feelings.

I do think that my more impatient side does not come out online because, as midnight said, I have time to gather my thoughts online and if I'm peeved by someone I'm interacting with, it is so much easier to just walk away and ignore them.