My cyber-self (I won't call her Mithalwen ..which just happened to be my main RPG char elsewhere when I signed up.... Mithalwen to me is that particular char - and is an elf and so gets to be elegant and ever-young ) is expression of my own personality undiluted by the restrictions placed on it in the actual world ..... in some ways this is the most real me for good or ill...... in a place, where I am surrounded by people with common interests, and we "see, no longer blinded by our eyes" .... So you get the best and the worst of me ..... depending whether my mind is in meat-cleaver, stream of consciousness or just plain ditzy mode.... the cyber-me can be a lot nastier and say the things I would only think off line - at least when ston-cold sober ! - but I am really trying to curb the inner bitch...but I fear I will always find the flippant remark irressistable and suffer the guilt when a blow falls heavier than I ever intended..... But the on-line self sometimes has the wits to edit or moderate thoughtless or intemperate remarks....
The internet is really the place where I do my talking mainly..... so many of my friends seem now incapable of talking of anything other than their children (what happened to those funny, clever women I knew at university? and will they ever recover ?) so I tend to have to do a lot of listening ....
.Work conversations are usually faily mundane and..... so I think I would go quite mad or curl up and die if I couldn't talk about literature and psychology on-line ...... intellectual is still a bit of an insult in England ........ and there is such a risk of seeming affected of pretentious ....... I spend my life trying to wear my learning lightly...... so in a strange way it is a huge relief to come somewhere where most people are so evidently so much more learned and intelligent than me..... trying not to seem utterly stupid is the main challenge ... it is like the year I spent in Paris .... just about everyone I knew was at least an undergraduate, but many had Doctorates or were amazingly talented ...... it was humbling but very mentally stimulating.......
The cyber self gets to ramble on more cos noone can interrupt her ...lol