Quote:
Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Poll question: How do you explain this whole lawtalkers/virtual community thing to your friends, family, SOs, ect. or is it your dirty little secret that no one else knows about?
Me: At this point it's hard to separate real life from online, so I don't even bother unless anonymity is important to the other person. I've been posting in communities for over 7 years now. (From August 1997 in my other board, from August 2000 in the GA boards). The line between real life and online sort of evaporated for me when I moved to a new city four and a half years ago and the only people I knew there were virtual. Now, I can't even begin to count how many virtually-met people I've met in real life. Hell, 25 people that I've met online have met the Displaced Dog, and a good dozen or so have stayed in my house overnight when they've been passing through.
So since my other board has been pretty much totally integrated into my real life, it's pretty easy to explain this one to my friends. The only raised eyebrows would be about the fact that I'm cheating on them in another community. My family sort of gets it, though they think this board is more professionally oriented than my other board. They think I talk about law here. Work colleagues don't know anything about any boards, though I do seem to have friends all over the place. As far as they're concerned, I only particpate in work related listservs. When I go off to meet my friends in Vegas or LA or New Orleans, I just explain it's a reunion. My two most recent SOs have been from online, so it was fairly easy to explain to them what's going on.
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My wife thinks I'm an addict about everything, and she thinks this is just another addiction, one with far fewer negative consequences than the others (except maybe golf and hockey, which actually get my ass into shape). She's not far wrong. Aside from that, my brother and his wife know vaguely about this, nobody else really does.
Edited to ad - I forward stuff to my brother and his wife from here quite a bit; so if you see something quirky on a major NBC Thursday night medically-oriented TV show that appeared on this board a few months previous, that's why.
