Remember, when you post with someone, you are posting with everyone they ever posted with

Is there some rule of which we should all take note that reminds us that our internet lives are not really any different from our "real" lives--and ditto for our relationships? If I'd known how it was going to turn out for her I would have warned my freshman roomate never to have sex, or even casual conversation, with most of the losers we knew freshman year. The weirdest people continue to pop up in your life and remember you from then. The same appears to be true for what I had blithely hoped would be an utterly immaterial and unreal "second life" on these here internets. Last year while I was renovating my house I started hanging out on the Kitchen Renovations board at Garden Web under a (different, weird, and embarrassing) pseudonym. Last night a (very nice) woman who I "met" there startled my real life architect by flipping through his portfolio and saying "hey! I know this kitchen! Its "weird and embarrassing pseudonym's!" She promptly got my real name and number from my RL architect, who was somewhat stunned to find out all that stuff I'd told him about the virtual world actual was literal, and she and her husband are coming over to see the IRL kitchen this RL weekend.

aimai