Personality

I know it's a truism that everyone has many different faces that they put on, depending on the people they are with, and what they are trying to achieve, consciously or otherwise. Like everyone, I suppose, I've seen myself do it, usually making small & subtle changes to bring forth or suppress various facets and try to charm, please, anger, impress, scare, whatever: and always assumed that everyone else did the same, of course*

But, 15-odd years of wandering around the internet has really driven home how much this happens and how enormous the changes can be. Of course that's mostly in watching my own presentations: I primarily assume that everyone else is experiencing the same things, it's almost impossible (by definition) to see very much of this in anyone else.

I do find it a bit astonishing just at the scope though, I have found myself (more or less without conscious volition), being charming, loquacious, flirtatious, dynamic and driven, leading and encouraging, angry and volatile, even cruel and tough-minded - all at different times, of course, I'm not a complete psychotic!** Until I had the opportunity to show these in online situations, I didnt really know that I had any of that inside me, and it's quite astonishing: well, to me anyway.

I guess it has actually helped me try to find it in real life, too, although overcoming the things that inhibit all those traits is much tougher when you are actually looking other people in the eye (and habits are kind of concreted-in like fence post by now). It's a truism of course - you can be more than you are - but also disconcerting to discover and connect with the idea at a visceral level rather than just mentally acknowledging the truth of it.

I should add that while we dont get much chance to see other people do it, in some online situations you get to see quite a bit of it in some ways: for instance, in playing World of Warcraft, the online role-playing game, people talk at both the character level (that is, the person they are portraying) and also at the person level (that is, their actual persona, rather than the role).

That isn't too illuminating, but .... when you play WOW, you create multiple characters, and unless you tell them, noone knows that you are the same person behind different ones: which means you can actually see some of the different personae that the same player exhibits to different people. I dont mean this in some sneaky fashion intending to deceive (at least not for me), just usually from inattention or some other cause. It certainly can be interesting though, particularly (of course) when someone wants or needs something from one character and not from another: you sure get to see different sides to some people.

I've also seen this in other places of course: one thing I noticed, with WOW, with online chat, and other programs, that the same person can exhibit quite different traits in chat to that of email, even when they know they are addressing the same person. I assume that is just because of the different nature of the media: in chat you generally write more or less as you talk, although you generally have a moment or two to reconsider*** between typing a sentence and sending it; whereas in email you have time to polish and consider at more length**** and craft it to fit your recipient (target was the word that sprang to mind, but that's a bit harsh).

As usual, I'm not really going anywhere in particular with this thought, more just banging on about what's on my mind today - naturally, as an upshot from an experience in WOW last night, which somewhat revealed an, ah, unexpected side in someone I thought I knew quite well - in as much as you can know someone online, of course.





*If I'm wrong and I'm the only one in the world doing this, well, damn I just stepped in it! and also, whats wrong with all of you? LOL
** Bits of me are missing, hahah
*** Sadly much underused
**** Sadly even more underused. Of course one could say the same about blogs :)