A ‘long’ time ago now (I don’t know how long it was, like 2 years?) I played a MMPORTSG (massive multi-player online real-time strategy game – and I’m not even sure if that’s what they are really supposed to be called) with my hubby.  We made good friends with people on the game while playing because we were leaders in our alliance and spent zounds of time playing. I can honestly say that I luv some of those peeps, even though I’ve never met them in real life! LOL!

Because of hubby’s concern for security, we only ever used screen names with limited personal details.  But it was necessary for planning and strategy that conversations moved off of the game and onto Facebook, where I created my dummy account to be friends with all of them over there. The info I shared there was also limited, and I only shared a couple of carefully selected photos of myself there, just for safety.

I am still friends with a handful of them, some of them quite close friends. I’m considering getting rid of my other FB account (if for no other reason than it totally violates Facebook guidelines, and I’m tired of keeping up in two places, not to mention having to deal with the almost daily marriage proposals and hook-up requests from strange men in foreign lands – no, I’m not joking). Today I found myself hesitating to make this change and let my good friends there know to find me on FB as the ‘real’ me.  I am hesitating for 2 reasons:

• my husband’s concern for privacy, and
• my own insecurities about those people seeing ALL of my life.

Am I so vain? I’m always myself and I don’t put on false airs or pretend to be someone I’m not. I’ve not been dishonest about anything, just selective.  After spending hundreds of hours with those people, they definitely know my personality, but they don’t always know my struggles.  I was always able to filter a bit of what I shared there… and got used to the security of being shielded behind my  chosen face.  I’m a pretty transparent person – but those peeps haven’t seen all my ups and downs (not to mention my photos).  My life is pretty much an open book on Facebook. Am I comfortable sharing all of me? Have I made myself out to be cooler online than I am in real life?

Some of them are close enough friends that they already know me, but just aren’t friends with me on Facebook.  Only one of them is my friend in both places (HI Crispy!).

In my head I know that if they really are my good friends, as I understand them to be, that nothing going on in my regular Facebook account will change how they think about me.  My heart wonders though… will they still like the ‘real’ me, when they can see it in all its usually-less-than-glamourous ‘glory’?

At the end of the day, there are only a handful of them who I really really want to stay in contact with.  And they are worth setting aside my insecurities for. I am probably not any cooler online than I am in real life. But it’s still not easy.

I hope my peeps will accept me for who I am, all of me, and if they don’t they weren’t really my peeps, right?  I hope they don’t feel this way about me:

I do believe I will commence with full combination of my 2 lives. As a social media manager who is helping people to comply with Facebook guidelines, I better come into compliance myself. And hopefully avoid all those unwanted marriage proposals in the process!