Has your Fluther identity ever been 'discovered" by someone you know in the real world and has that caused you problems?

wow… no but the above scenario sounds nightmarish.
mcbealer is my screenname in general, so there’s nothing incognito about it… I guess I don’t trust the anonymity that some associate with the internet, so I basically don’t post stuff on here I wouldn’t want the whole world to know to begin with.

If people I know in the real world found me on here (which obviously i’m not that hard to find), I wouldn’t really mind. The things I say and share in here are things i’d say to the people I know in real life. There’s certain personal questions on here that the collective could probably benefit from, but I don’t tend to divulge personal problems on here. I’d rather share that with someone I know. In my opinion, this isn’t the best place to air dirty laundry.

I would be disconcerted if anyone who knew me read what I write here. Not that I write anything scandalous, I just was under the impression it was anonymous and no one can know who you really are. I like that and I like that I can express and give voice to sentiments that normally would fall under the heading “Dear Diary”. So I feel like my words are witnessed and gives them a life, but not by anyone that knows me.

My Fluther username is based on my real name, so anyone who knows me in real life is likely to recognize me at once.

The only reason for anonimnity is there are crazy scary people online who might want to mess with my non Fluther life. When I left Askville I outed myself with a link to my website. Anybody in the real world would recognize me by username as well as my posts. IyamwhudIyam!

I would be a bit upset only because Fluther is my place. I can be myself and not worry about anyone else. However, I think that situation was handled in the best possible way. As soon as she realized it had real-life importance, the Fluther-member announced herself which I think was mature and the responsible thing to do.

@bigbanana – You’ve been hanging out in a bowl in my kitchen for a day now. Suddenly that all means nothing!?!?!

There is a person who lives where I live who has the exact same first and last name as I do accept for one letter. I just blame him. I don’t do anything that would lead anyone to go as far as tracing my ip address.

There are a couple of people who know me in the real world here on Fluther. One I knew of when I first got here but the other one I found out about several months after being here after they sent me a message stating that they knew me away from here.

The latter one was a little disconcerting because I’d already interacted with this individual in several discussions, some of them where I was a little passionate and overzealous about something and I seriously debated/disagreed with them on a few things, and it was a bit awkward finding out their real identitiy and then conversing with them away from Fluther.

Since that time, the other friend and I have had no problems and I don’t see them make an appearance here very often any more. I’m hoping that is the last time I encounter a situation like that.

@Bluefreedom – I told you I had taken to much cough syrup and I was out of line mocking your choice of undergarment but you can’t let it die can you. : > )

@Bri_L. I’m NEVER going to live that down, ever! I still can’t believe you know all my dark and dirty secrets. Scandalous! :-)

@Bluefreedom – mmmmbbbwwwahaaahhahhahahaa

Well, I outed myself lol. I wouldn’t care if anyone came on and knew who I was. Like Krystal, what I post here is exactly what I would say in a conversation. I do not hide my views on things. I’m sure if a family member joined, they wouldn’t want to read anything about me referencing sex, but that’d be there own damn fault for reading my posts! haha. I don’t use this screenname often though.

@Bri_L really a big bowl? is that all i am to you? just another face – sitting pretty, waiting to be eaten?

ugh, ignore my terrible grammar :(

I just had a computer guru here. whom I had never met before. He downloaded all my stuff and installed my new computer. Several days later I emailed him a quick question about screen glare and my aching eyes.

He sent back a note with the link to my similar question here. He had Googled, and gailcalled on fluther was his fifth hit. (He thought a lot of the answers were excellent)

I was shocked when this occurred to me today. When I wrote about that entire situation, I was, of course, trying to be anonymous, and I never imagined that any of the people involved would stumble upon the post.

When I initially saw “Liz” respond, I was completely baffled that such a ridiculous coincidence had occurred, but I realized that it shouldn’t be that uncomfortable because obviously she was already aware of the entire situation, so it wasn’t as if anything new had been divulged.

If a family member or coworker were to see me on Fluther and recognize who I was, I would find that much more disconcerting. I could potentially be very recognizable because my manner of speech and perspectives are identical in real life as they are on here. But I’ve probably shared some experiences on here that I wouldn’t exactly want to share with family members and coworkers.

Half my family is part of the collective.

@bigbanana – I am sorry, I guess after we met, I just didn’t find you that “a peal ing” .

I have made a brand new identity for this website, and I am careful to not post real names or events that would cause a reasonably minded person to be able to find me in real life. This is not to let me speak more willingly though. This is simply because I had previously linked all my identities together, and I decided I didn’t wish to do so here.

I haven’t yet found a person in real life who has known Fluther, so I’ll have to wait and see when that happens.

@Bri_L Hey thats ok, I wont take it personally as there were a bunch of us hanging around, and maybe you just picked the wrong one.

@bigbanana hehe. You have a great bunch of friends you do. hehe.

it hasn’t happened to me yet. i feel like it will one day, and my identity for sure is not that hard to figure out if someone i knew came on here. it wouldn’t cause problems, but it’d be weird. i kind of wish i’d made a totally irrelevant name on here.

I like sharing fluther with my husband and that’s it. Someone that knows my husband in RL followed us here and I really wish that this person hadn’t. I often feel that I need to bite my tongue. I feel like @EmpressPixie, this is our place.

@tiffyandthewall (Me too. Oh, well. In Flutherland, what’s done is done.)

No, but I started fluthering with the knowledge that there is a user who knows me irl. I’ve been a little cautious about what I post because he might read it, but I’ve generally gotten over that.