Sometimes I look at the cities Dopers live in and think, “I wonder if WeirdoGirl59 is really my friend Ellen who lives in St. Paul?” or whatever. Has anyone ever found out that a Doper was a friend or acquaintance you already knew in real life?
No.
But I did recently find out that a friend’s boyfriend is a Doper. I don’t know his username or if he even posts here, though.
I don’t know if I know a doper or not, but I do know two lurkers. One specifically reads my posts now that he knows I post here, and he doesn’t mind. My favorite professor is married to a man who is a retired professor. I love both these people, and he is a lurker, but doesn’t feel he’d contribute enough to sign up. Maybe if we ask a bunch of linguistics questions he will feel the need to join up, but to each his own.
Another is a lawyer in my hometown (or a law school student who is a paralegal or something now, I’m not really sure). I went to school with his daughter and I mentioned the Straight Dope in front of her once and she was sure her dad read it, so I asked him…
He’s been reading it almost as long as me!
Brendon
No, not yet.
Only one person (a friend from work) knows that I read this board. And she teases me because I’m always printing out threads at work so I can read them during my travels.
The handful of close friends that I have don’t know that I read it, but that’s just because we get to speak/visit so painfully infrequently that we talk about so much other stuff, and the SDMB doesn’t have a chance to enter into the conversation. (It would be really cool, though, if I discovered that some of them were Dopers, as they’re very bright and knowledgeable and open-minded people. Which is just part of what I love about them–by osmosis, they assist me in not being a complete dunce.)
I would be blown away if I found out that someone in my family (well, with the exception of one or two) read this board. Don’t get me wrong: they’re mostly decent, salt-of-the-earth people (Nuance Alert! Nuance Alert!), but many of them possess certain viewpoints and/or traits that wouldn’t mesh at all well with the overall culture of this board. (Yes, I am the uncontested black sheep of my family.) Though if any of them ever stumbled upon this inner sanctum of…well, I’ll leave it to y’all to fill in the blanks, it’s highly likely that they’d immediately be able to identify me since my username is a name I’ve had IRL since childhood, aside from being rather sui generis. And that would be fine by me.
I do sometimes catch myself wondering if, during my daily travels in New York City, I’ve ever crossed paths (on the street, on the subway, wherever else) with the likes of pseudotriton ruber ruber, Eve (I think she works in NYC), **D_Odds ** (hope I got that right), and others who I’m sure I’m forgetting.
I found that someone here is in the CSU Fullerton MSE program with me, but I don’t remember who. The program is online based, so we don’t see each other, but at least during the orientation meeting I must have been in the same room with another Doper.
No. I do have my suspicions, though.
Can’t say I’ve found anyone else on this board from Carson City, NV though.
~Tasha
Aside from those I’ve directly converted, I know of two happenstance Dopers.
Once, a few years ago, a friend I saw every day at school said something to the effect of “Hey, how about those 1920’s style Death Rays?” (This was 1999, I think, but was referencing some board unpleasantness that need not be dredged up again.) In an IRL context, it took me a good ten seconds to process and attribute the sentence. I guess I’d mentioned the Dope to her a few months before, and she’d posted a few times without mentioning it.
Another friend I met through Yelp knew about the SDMB when I mentioned it, and is even familiar with a few of my SDMB friends, but she refuses to tell me her screen name. I can only assume she was the female victor of the TMI Thread.
I’ve told this story before but it’s still good.
I ran into Ringo at a HouDope. We compared notes and it turns out he is the little brother of the first girl I ever kissed.
No, but I was outed by a lurker. A former co-worker of mine from back in 1999 that I’ve kept in touch with by the occasional e-mail. I got one from her a few months ago. She reads here and something I wrote clicked, so she started watching when I posted til she finally wrote and asked if that was me.
Yup. See him almost every day at work.
Susan
Not really, but I did come across a Doper on one of my friend’s MySpace page (said friend is not a Doper that I know of).
Yep – a few months after joining here, I realized that edwino is the son of one of my coworkers, and that we’ve talked IRL a few times before.
I used to work with a middle aged gentleman with crazy hair who always wore the same pair of blue pants. He was really into SETI and had some environmental bumper stickers on his car, but aside from that he kind of made me nervous. He was one of those “What personal space?!” people and he used to stand up at his cubicle (which was right behind mine) and check out my screen. One day I was posting something to the Dope and he said, “Oh, you’re a Doper? I love that site! I’m on the message boards but I hardly ever post.” “Oh, thats…uh…that’s nice.” was my response. I quickly closed out of the board and didn’t open it again until I moved to a new desk. Eesh.
We should have some sort of recognition passwords, to be able to identify each other when we bump into each other in waiting rooms and such. Any ideas?
So far, all the Dopers I know in real life are people I brought to the boards myself. My boyfriend lurks, and a couple of friends post half-heartedly. My sister tried it out a while ago but she said “lol” and got jumped on, and she’s afraid of you now. 
I never did manage to get to any Dopefests, because I’m sort of shy. That will have to change when I move to Maryland, though, because I think I might need a social support group.
Yes.
[QUOTE=brendon_small<snip>he is a lurker, but doesn’t feel he’d contribute enough to sign up. <snip>[/QUOTE]
Lord, if we had to make some kind of valuable contribution here to hang around…well, we’d be in a lot of trouble. The phrase “ghost town” comes to mind. 
(To answer the OP, nope. Not yet. I think it would be cool, though.)
No, but I learned in a recent thread that **anu-la1979 ** and I work just a couple of blocks from each other and exit the same subway stop on a daily basis. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that we’d ridden together at some point.
Oh, and silenus and I have dined at the same The Hat location.
Not IRL, but I’ve run into people other places online that’ve been dopers. For instance, one of my best online friends RL friend is a somewhat prolific poster, and someone I met in Second Life has an account here, too.
Jeez, I’d think you’d say more, since she already posted.
I was reading a thread once in which people were telling the names of bands they’d been on. vibrotronica named a couple of his past band names which were distinctive and scatological, and a light went on over my head; we’ve been friends IRL for five or six years.
Come to think of it, though, that wasn’t totally out of the blue. I’d first found www.straightdope.com after seeing him reading it on his computer at work one day; I used to read the columns in our local alternative weekly, and went to the site with interest, which led to the boards, etc.