E-mail: a different persona?

[anasazi662003]

Hello,

 

I'm wondering how common it is for someone who spends a lot of time online adopt a different "persona"? And how much stock should one put in that "persona"?

 

My wife has been communicating via e-mail with a female "friend" I don't personally know. (I do know who she is.) Her e-mails suggest that a totally different person than the one I married and enjoy doing things with is sitting behind the keyboard.

 

She routinely makes up stories about what she's doing, say, over the weekend. Instead of talking about something that she and I did on a weekend, she either substitutes someone else's name for mine, or she simply makes up a tale. From her e-mails, you'd think she was quite the bar-hopper. Hard to fathom that, when she's home with me on most of those nights she describes to her friend.

 

She talks online about some things that we've done and enjoyed together as if they were awful to her. A simple example is a concert we went to a couple of years ago... she really seemed to enjoy it and got into the artist's music for some time after that. Yet, she tells her "friend" (who doesn't care for that artist's music) that it she was "dragged" to it and that the concert was "tolerable."

 

It seems to me that she's adopting, at least for the purposes of her online persona, the influences of her "friend." So, what am I to believe? What she tells me or what she tells her? When I ask her about the things she's written, her answers are consistent with what she's always told me. So... the question is, how much chatter between girlfriends is just BS? Should I just discount this stuff and not worry about it? Or does it suggest something more than simply one person trying to relate to another?

 

Often, our mates interact differently with their friends than they do with us. It's "girl talk." And although e-mail is probably one of the worst forms of communication (you can't see a person's facial gestures or body language, or hear his/her tone of voice, which makes it easy to misunderstand the writer's true meaning),

a little voice in the back of my head says, "This isn't good."

 

Hey, she's free to choose her own friends, but this is strange. Any thoughts, anyone? Many thanks.

[moimeme]

I've heard of people adopting different personalities in forums. I suppose it's people who either have a desire to act or fantasize or maybe people that don't feel they are being the people they truly wanted to be.

 

I don't think it's necessarily a problem, but you can maybe try to read up on it. She could be just doing it for a lark, though her pal may be disappointed if she ever found out that this was fabrication.

[Karlise]

Maybe she's bored.

 

Maybe she really needs a creative project to be working on.

 

She would probably be very good at writing fiction!!!

[Dug]

The internet / email has kinda become the "liguid courage" earlier generations got from alcohol. The ability to hide behind a computer screen takes the edge off alot like a double shot of Vodka will in a face to face meeting. That's not to say that everyone is a fake, but you will find people revealing and sharing stuff on here that they could never do in person, or at east not until a good comfort level and trust was established. If you make a fool of yourself online or draw the wrong attention, you can change your screenname and start a new life....can't do that when you've done it "live".

[anasazi66]

Originally posted by Dug

The internet / email has kinda become the "liquid courage" earlier generations got from alcohol. The ability to hide behind a computer screen takes the edge off alot like a double shot of Vodka will in a face to face meeting.

 

This is a good point. Even more, the anonymity of the Internet gives us all something of a blank canvas on which we can paint self-portraits for strangers. moimeme summed it up in a way that was comforting to me when she said "her pal might be disappointed to find out it's a fabrication."

 

Sounds as if I don't need to let this blow holes in my self-esteem. Thank you all for your input and reassurance.

 

I can't help but wonder, though, if I should be concerned that she spends a fair amount of time (2 or 3 times a day) doing this. It seems to suggest to me that this might be fulfilling some need of hers that she isn't getting out of our relationship. When I've asked her about that, she has said, no, that's not the case, that this is just a "diversion." Strange diversion! Just a little game or a power trip of some kind, perhaps?