I’ve wondered out loud before at how real people really are online. Is it easier to be candid here than in real life? Even if you use your real name, telling real stories about your life, there is a certain level of anonymity. We can still hide behind our laptop screens, avoiding the tells of body language, the inflection in voices. We can be more ourselves then ourselves.
We can be bolder than we would be during face to face conversations. Here we can let our guard down, we can say what we want, how we want, without that trepidation of a negative instant reaction we could get out in the world.
Here I can exude a sense of confidence that I don’t always feel, hoping no one pulls back the curtain. We all have insecurities that we successfully hide, does that make us less honest? In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m staying real…
- I try very hard to appear like I have my shit together, but there are days I am so overwhelmed that I ponder what would happen if I took just a little of my son’s anxiety medication.
- I am very insecure about my friendships, and am constantly concerned that I have done or said something to offend people. I don’t want to ask if that’s the case, because I also don’t want to seem too needy.
- I act like I have all the answers, but am really flying blind and hoping I don’t kill anyone.
- If I were as honest as I pretend to be, I would use the phrases “Shut up!” and “Grow up!” much more often.
- When I share a comparable experience with people, I fear that it comes across as oneupmanship or duplicity. I have gotten to a point where I don’t want to say anything at all, then worry that that makes me seem indifferent. See #2
- So many of my responses to other people’s difficulties sound like stock inspirational clichés, but don’t feel like I can say what I really think because I would appear callous. See #4
- I’m not always as happy as I seem, nor as nice.
- As I get older, I become notably more cynical and mistrustful, and can easily see myself in my dotage as the curmudgeonly, neighborhood cat lady yelling out my window at kids to “get off my lawn!”
Stay real, what’s behind your façade?
Submitted as part of Shell’s “Pour Your Heart Out” writing prompt at Things I Can’t Say. Please stop by to read the other posts, and give a little comment love.
Thin spiral notebook 
Oh yes – I have all these thoughts running through my mind. Its so much easier to voice them online though then IRL.
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I wonder about your #1 all the time lately it seems. Scary part is I’m afraid it won’t work.
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Yeah, I’m afraid of that too.
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I’ve had many of those thoughts before but not so much recently. I tend to put the negative out there as much as the positive because I’m often searching for support, answers, ideas.
I do worry about misperception and try to make it clear that I am not supermom or wonder woman and that I don’t do it all- not by a long shot. But then sometimes I wonder if really I am as busy and overextended as I sound and then I end up wondering how I get it all done, too.
And, personally, it’s my faith that guides me through it the most.
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I often wonder this, too. I try to be real online. but I am louder online than IRL. Is it too much? Is it not enough? Sometimes we just have to trust and for me, that can be a hard thing to do.
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It seems you and I are cut from the same cloth. Faking it until we make it, right? I too am getting a little less patient and nice as I age. Maybe it’s all the time with my kids, or perhaps my husband is rubbing off on me? Anyway, I feel your pain!
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So honest.
I do feel like I sometimes leave trite comments on posts that are difficult. I DO care, but am sometimes at a loss for what to say.
I’m “louder” on my blog than I am IRL. B/c I can think about what I want to say first and I can edit. I don’t have that luxury IRL.
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Really want to know what’s behind here?
insecurity, anxiety, wonder, tenderheartedness (is that a word?), and a lot of crazy…
I’m the same person on the computer as I am in person. I talk a lot in both settings. I ask a lot of questions in both. I crack jokes and am very sarcastic each way.
Like you, I will read way more into things I read by you and my “friends” online than I should.
I’m unlike most of the real life/everyday people I know. Finding you, Tara, and the otehrs I know through blogging/writing/social media has comforted me because I know tehre are others “like” me.
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My insecurities are what I try to hide the most. I don’t want to come across as whiney or in constant need of validation, but I do worry about what other people really think of me more than I should. That ‘reading in’ thing gets me every time.
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Oh, there are many things behind my facade…laundry that has been sitting for weeks (even though my living room is clean), words unspoken toward the idiots and monsters that are allowed to live in our society (sorry, the PSU scandal has me up in arms), true happiness with my life that is hidden by short instances of snapping at my children…there are things hidden all over the place behind my happy, put-together, chilled out facade.
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Oh…my…gosh, get outta my head (heh, #5) although, you always leave the loveliest comments at my place. Oh, and AMEN to #8!!!
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