How honest are you online?

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The anonymity of an internet connection paired with human nature invites dishonesty. Everyone wants to be more interesting than they really are, or younger(older for young people) or more admirable or more attractive. They would like to be more intelligent or tougher, braver, more successful, cooler, etc. Why settle for...*you*..if you can be what you want to be online?

Personally, I've been online for about eight years and have been mostly honest. Moreso in recent years. Sometimes I would lie to more easily make a point or make myself more interesting....sometimes I lied to make others more interesting as I would give them something more interesting to consider during a chatroom conversation. On occasion I have said things online which I may not say in person (behavior I despise). Most of the time I realized in retrospect that I typed something I may not have said aloud....an incongruency I consider to be as bad as a lie.

So, how honest are you when you chat with strangers, post to a forum, create an online persona or otherwise represent yourself online?

 

I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.

 

I'm pretty much the same online and offline, and very much WYSIWYG in both. If anything I can be a little more awkward or shy online (I know, it should be the other way round) but in terms of honesty I don't see the point in pretending to be someone else. The anonymity doesn't affect my behaviour in any way.

 

In real life, I regularly use firearms to shoot people, and to get their attention I leap into nearby bodies of water and fetch a large trout to slap them with.

My actions online tends to be more exaggerated (...), but mostly the same. It would be as if I bypassed/hastened the "getting to know people" stage. And, surprisingly, I'm actually quite shy/quiet in real life. Hah!

 

Depends. There's a lot I'm not telling, but not a lot to know. No point blurting out anything more online than I'd do in RL, no point lying when silence is gold and especially when I'm a terrible liar.

 

Quite honest.

(This is the only place I'm actually "online" (FAI included).)
However, if I consider something too private, I don't tell it - simple as that.

Lying is simply too complicated. Why waste memory on keeping track of it?

That's my RL philosophy, too.

 

i tend to be really honest on BoM and will share pretty much any experiance if i think that it will help somebody with their own life. I'm really open about most things (perfect example is the abortion rant!).

However, I do have a habit of going onto other sites and saying that I'm a 6' Lap dancer with perfect features. Unfortunatly, in real life i'm 5'2 and fat......ah well.

It's fun to see how people react!

 

A 6' lap dancer? Wow. That'd be kinda scary!

I'm a lot more open online than in real life, but in both environments I am pretty bloody honest.

 

I'm mostly honest about myself online. Obviously I don't use my real name but other then that it's very rare that I'll lie online.

 

I tend to be as honest both online and offline. Though I tend to be pretty quiet in both forms about personal information. I tend to appear more cheerful online I think though as well

Probably all the smilies

 

Ditto what dmc said.

ESPECIALLY about Splunge

 

I never lie.

 

I'm as honest online as I am in real life with people I don't know all that well.

In other words, what dmc said about me.

 

Seeing as people who'd lie about themselves online would probably do so in this thread as well the purpose of it all is kind of defeated, no?

I tend to believe that I'm pretty much myself online. Meaning that I don't really say that much unless I have something to say. Actually thinking about it I have a tendency to sometimes "pretend" to be someone else in RL, mainly because I'm kind of a reserved guy who don't like too much letting people too close; so it's sometimes easier to just let them believe you are something you really aren't to keep them at a distance . As a result I only have a couple of real friends, the rest are just acquaintances who don't really know me at all.

 

The only times I can remember lying online are when I'm in mmo's and trying to get out of a bad group or get away from someone who's bugging me.

 

I don't lie. I may be more vocal online than I am IRL, however. I may also try to present myself more favourably than I might otherwise be...

That said, on an RP Message board, I play the character, not me specifically. I have a character on a couple Wrestling RP sites that does drink beer and is not abour the occasional obscenity laden tirade to get an opponent mad enough to fight. The character likes to hit people with Frying pans, weed whackers and put them through flaming tack tables and panes of Glass. If DotW can describe it from a CZW death match, my character will try to top it!

 

No lies, as full disclosure as possible, but some privacy kept. I don't come up with my name and surname everywhere, nor do I communicate my nicknames from other places when I don't really feel like it, so I guess you could say honest but sometimes private.

 

I think I'm more streightforward online, IRL I'm typically more reserved. I tend to say what I think without hesitating too much which can be a good thing bad but sometimes leads to me saying things that I haven't really thought through. I avoid outright lying but have in a few cases have done so to make a point, but not anymore really.

 

what chevalier said seems to fit most of the posters here(including myself) & some of us seem to be too brutally honest(myself included) which can get us in trouble(myself most definitely included!).