How well can you know somebody on-line?

[Hugin]

I'm more honest online than IRL, even though I don't share anything that could identify me.
In general, I think it's easy to know just as much about a net friend as you do an IRL one. Even if they're lying to you, the important parts of their identity show through.

[Weeto]

It can be easy to create a fantasy environment around you, so it can be difficult to tell if everything that someone tells you is true.

I could behave like a really nice person on here and be the mad axeman of Glasgow or someone who appears rather grumpy could be nicer as they don't vent their rage verbally.

You only have to look at some of the people who appeared at YABS (sockpuppets and liars) who claimed things that were completely untrue and couldn't be trusted.

[Kevin T Brown]

What you see is what you get with me. Always has been, always will be. While I understand some people have their reasons and prefer to not use their real names online, I do. It's much easier to introduce myself by my name rather than an alias when I meet people off the boards.

[Matt Doc Martin]

I am exactly the same in person as I am online.

ask anyone who's met me

I hope, for the most part, that I am the same.

That is: delightfully wrong.

[Personamanx]

Eh, I don't think you can really KNOW anyone with nothing but online interaction. On a message board you can marshall your thoughts to the point that it can hardly be considered you anymore.

[Matt Doc Martin]

Eh, I don't think you can really KNOW anyone with nothing but online interaction. On a message board you can marshall your thoughts to the point that it can hardly be considered you anymore.

Have you seen what some people here say? If that is "marshaling your thoughts", they are absolutely doomed in real-life.

[Kedd]

Not very well at all.

People are capable of lying much easier online than they can/do in person.

I find it very difficult to lie about who I am whether on line or in person, but I might be in the minority on that one.

[DungeonMasterJim]

For me, it tends to be length of time and how much I have contact with them. One of my friends from the Benbo board has a blog with about 100 or more entries over several years. If she's kept up a lie that long then I've totally boughten into it. She even mentioned I should come to her place for a visit - she's a lesbian so it really would've been as just friends.

For people that I don't interact with as much, I don't know them at all.

[Tyr]

I am exactly the same in person as I am online.

ask anyone who's met me

Just out of curiosity if I ever meet Bert, is that like meeting everyone that he's ever met online?

[DungeonMasterJim]

Just out of curiosity if I ever meet Bert, is that meeting everyone that he's ever met online?

If you ask him about on-line people he will give you his opinion of them. So in a way, yes.