Who Are You: Not Just the Theme Song to CSI

Congratulations, you have a name! In theory it's a reflection of how you'd like to be perceived online. Now you have to think about how much you're willing to tell people about yourself. In general it's a good idea to follow the advice we give our kids. Don't tell your last name, where you go to school (or work), your address, phone number or any of the important info like SSN or driver's license number. Most of the people you meet aren't stalkers. Notice I say MOST. There are some disturbed people in cyberland just like in real life and many of them don't broadcast the fact that they are potential stalkers or criminally inclined to divert your mail and sign up for credit cards in your name. I was very surprised to chat with an intelligent gentleman who introduced himself by his first name and told me he's a lawyer. As conversation progressed I found out he teaches law and he mentioned the city he lives in. All fairly general information. Except that I mentioned a law school in the area and he corrected me, naming the school he taught at. With the magic of Google I was looking at a picture of him on the faculty page of that college within 20 seconds. Be aware that a lot of little innocuous seeming details can be put together and identify you. It's not rude to maintain a little mystery or even fib a bit in the name of safety.

Lets talk more about fibbing online -- in my opinion, the morality lies in the intent. Internet chat is creative writing. I don't consider creating a persona different from yourself to interact with others as cheating. Look at the names in the rooms. There are an awful lot of Dr. Somethings, Boss Somebodies, Rich So-and-sos and there's nothing wrong with that. People ask each other, are you really a doctor, an executive, wealthy? Maybe you are and maybe you aren't. But if you're not a doctor and say you are, be prepared to get outted sometimes. If someone in the medical field asks you questions you can't answer, that person isn't going to talk to you again and may even bad-mouth you in the room. Luckily there are plenty more rooms to chat in. Maybe next time you're asked you'll decide to confess that you haven't gone to med school but you'd like to play doctor, or maybe you'll still pretend you Mr. MD and hope your potential lover doesn't know enough to call you out. I've always wanted a closet full of obscenely expensive shoes. I don't consider it immoral to say I'm wearing Manolo Blahniks as I chat.

On the other hand, misrepresenting yourself in order to manipulate someone, for example, saying you're single and leading a lover to believe that you want to build a future together, is bad. Wrong. Reprehensible. In my book the one piece of personal info you don't fuck around with is available-vs-taken. Because it's all fun and games online right up until Jack falls head over heels for Jill. So by all means, talk about your surgery schedule, or your private yacht, or your closet full of Jimmy Choos but don't talk about the pleasures of bachelor life if you're married.

Here, gentle reader, is the part of this blog where I share a personal chat story with you. No, not a transcript this time, but a cautionary tale of of lies and intrigue... Oh fine, it's not exactly the Maltese Falcon. I cross-dress, online only since there could be no mistaking me for a man IRL. Ok, there was that time on Halloween -- I looked so good a gay man came onto me but that required fake facial hair and ace bandages to accomplish. Online however it's a snap. I thought it was all in good fun, innocent creative writing, my partners and I thoroughly enjoying ourselves and no harm done. I never committed the mortal sin of lying about my availability. In fact, I made a point of warning potential lovers that I was a one-night stand kind of guy, emotionally unavailable, devoted to my family, etc. All warnings that seemed to make me especially attractive to women who enjoy a challenge with a man that's stable enough to have a wife. There was, however, one particular woman who was different from my other partners. Who, in fact, made other playmates seem dull to the point that, without being in any way coerced I quit sleeping around. And I enjoyed being a man for her. A lot. A whole lot. I was allowing some of my natural traits that polite society labels as masculine (assertive women are bitches, assertive men are confident) to blossom. Plus, having a dick was fun!

The charade was easy to maintain because I didn't appreciably change the details of my life, and we "dated" for most of a year. But it became distasteful to lie to a person who I saw daily, who was important to me, who I cared about. Eventually I confessed. Bad move. The following advice is straight out of Dear Abby: if you do something that you know is going to hurt your partner, don't ease your own conscience by confessing to them. Just quit doing it. The right thing to do would've been make something up that gave me a good reason to leave the relationship without making her think that 1) she did something wrong or that 2) people are untrustworthy jerks who are all out for their own fun, the rest of the world be damned. I still maintain my mistake was not in the original cross-dressing but in the relationship building under false pretenses. For which I have no excuse. Because it did end up hurting an amazing woman and it was all my fault. She recently showed back up in chat and I made myself available for a little closure, taking my well-deserved lumps. To her credit she was very adult and still nearly irresistible. But please, gentle reader, learn from my mistake. If you're going to pretend to be someone you're not, don't be selfish enough to continue the charade if your partner starts to care about you.

So basically be smart about what you tell people about yourself, and be consistent. Choosing not to discuss certain details is completely reasonable. And if you do adopt a chat persona, don't be an asshole.