It’s not like I’ve tried to keep the fact that I post here any big secret to my family. My kids knew I posted on a site called ‘Straightdope’ that my older son describes as ‘Reddit for old people’. They’ve been threatening for awhile now to figure out who I was on the board. Well, yesterday was the day. My younger son googled some combo of "Straightdope son OCD’ figuring that I would have posted about my older son at some point, and he was right-- he found and shared with his brother the one thread I really wouldn’t have wanted him to see, one I posted a couple years ago asking for advice on his mental and emotional issues.
My wife knew I posted here as well. If she had asked me my username at any time I would have given it to her. But she didn’t ask, and I didn’t offer it. Until this weekend, when she got curious after the reveal, and my younger son helpfully showed her how to search for the term by which I usually refer to her, “Mrs. solost”, to find specific times I mentioned her. And she sat down and read. And read. Through 14 years of posts. Nerve wracking. Fortunately in those 14 years I’ve barely said a bad word about her. She was surprised at the sheer volume of posts (as was I - I didn’t really realize what a frequent poster I’d become). She was concerned at my username-- “are you ‘so lost’? Do you need help?” I had to explain that I joined the board to post during the final season of ‘Lost’ and ‘so lost’ was a play on how I felt trying to understand the final season. I’m bad at coming up with usernames
It seems, so far at least, that Mrs. solost came out of the deep dive into my posting history without wanting a divorce. Again, it’s not like I was trying to keep my SD identity a secret. I think there’s a difference between secrecy and privacy, and I guess I’ve always seen this board as a place that was just for me alone, where I could discuss things with a very smart group of like-minded people without concern that my kids or anybody else in my ‘real life’ would overanalyze or second-guess what I said. But I did always know this day would probably come, and that I wouldn’t have anything too awful to discover when it did, other than low-grade embarrassment at some old posts. The things I’ve said on this board have always been things I would say in person to someone who knew me. I’ve never hidden behind a secret identity to express ideas or treat people in a way I wouldn’t do in person.
Not sure where I go from here. I’ll probably take a break and stop posting, at least for a little while. I know it’s not like my kids are going to be closely following all my posts from now on-- they’ll probably get tired of my boring ramblings after the novelty of having discovered me wears off. But it’s not the same now.
Same. My wife (who, in case she ever reads this, is perfect in every way) doesn’t know I post here. I don’t think I’ve said anything that would bother her, other than perhaps sharing too much on the internet.
Nobody knows that I post here other than the people here. I’m not hiding it and I blantly surf the dope at work and home, nobody seems to give a damn and I like it that way. Some people at work have come up behind me and commented about me going to a site with “Dope” in the banner while at work and I just tell them its an old time message board with a bunch of other old farts and they just shake their heads and ask if I ever heard of Reddit. They don’t get it, and I’m OK with that.
My wife doesn’t post here, but is well aware of my posting. She’s helped to host Dopefest and gone to Dope events like the old Gettysdope ones and the like.
She does read the SDMB. My kids are also well aware I post here, I don’t think they bother reading, my daughter briefly joined in the fail revival of the Middle Earth D&D game though. middle-earth-game
My husband and kids know I post here and know my username. None of them have ever shown any interest in looking up what I’ve said about them and that’s no doubt for the best. If they ever do, I hope they’ll recognize that I was blowing off steam in the moment.
I stand by mean things I’ve said about the stepkids.
I’ve had times, in the past, where students I was subbing for* Googled my name, and some way or another ended up finding various instances of me online and asking “Is that you?”. Sometimes, this includes my posts here, though I don’t know precisely what paths led them here. And so, while I don’t make it a point to dox myself, I try to take it for granted that it’ll happen, and not post anything that I wouldn’t want my students to see.
*Oddly, this hasn’t happened (at least, not to the stage of students mentioning it to me) since I’ve been teaching full-time, for whatever reason. Maybe kids are less curious about a regular teacher than about a sub, or maybe they think they’ll be repercussions from a regular teacher and so just don’t let me know they’re doing it. Still, I’m continually conscious that it can happen.
Yeah, I’ve been indiscreet here and hope I never get caught. Nothing too actionable but my identity would be trivially easy to confirm by anyone who knows me. I’ve been regretfully unkind to various family members at one time or another, but I think I’ve never aired any laundry at all involving my wonderful and perfect husband, so there’s that. (He knows my username but is not the type to go looking, though I expect he might if I was dead.)
Occasionally there would be something posted here I would like my wife to read. I would send her a link to the thread and she would read it. After doing this a couple times she said she doesn’t want to read the whole thread just to read what I want her to see. So now I just send her a screen shot and she is happy. She has never asked what my user name is and expressed zero interest in joining.
I occasionally mention the SDMB to friends and family, including references to things I have read or posted. With one exception, nobody to my knowledge has ever expressed the slightest interest in looking me up. (As an aside, a couple of years ago, I did ask a close friend what they thought of my board avatar by showing it to them, and changed it based on their reaction. My avatar at the time was the movie poster image of Robby the Robot, picked solely because it was associated with my username.)
The one exception: years ago when I was teaching physics I frequently mentioned the SDMB in class. One day a student came up to me and told me they had figured out my username based on a keyword search—and they had indeed.
I was a bit mortified, as I worried that it might be unprofessional to mix work and personal life, so I stopped mentioning the SDMB at work. I have also always censored myself a bit with respect to personal matters, since although we are nominally anonymous on this message board, it is not very hard to figure out who someone is in real life—especially if someone knows you well.
My family knows I read the Dope, I think, but no one IRL knows I post here, and I prefer to keep it that way. This is my space for reading, thought, curiosity, learning, and sometimes having my understanding of things challenged and expanded. I can’t get that anywhere else in my life, and I feel my freedom to comment on various topics would be compromised if someone close to me knew it was me making those comments (mainly because I am routinely dismissed, corrected, ignored, or mocked and humiliated IRL).
If I want to bring up something I read here, I discreetly say something like “…a thread I was reading was discussing…” without indicating where I read it or if/how I was participating in it. Yeah, I know this may not be totally healthy, but it works for me for now.
On a desktop/laptop I like to click the Posted time of the post (upper right corner of post). This pulls up a window to copy or share the link to that post specifically.
On a phone/pad, make sure the post is the top one in the screen, and then share the page and it should share directly to the post you want.
The wife knows I’m here and doesn’t seem to care much. But if she were to take it into her head to investigate, she wouldn’t learn much more than what song lyrics I’m apt to remember if prompted. And none of that would surprise her.
Well, I said I’d probably take a break from posting, at least for a little while, but I doubt I’ll stop permanently. I think I’d miss this place too much. I probably won’t quit reading posts, since I literally learn something new almost every time I visit here. It’s not like my being found out was the end of the world, but like I said, it’s not going to be the same going forward.
I’ve long been wary of people finding this out, and so my Reddit and StraightDope usernames are completely different than the handle I usually go by in other forums or elsewhere on the web.
My kids have known my identity here since I first joined, almost 24 years ago. They’ve been pretty ‘meh’ about it. Both joined here briefly in their teens, but didn’t stay long. The Mrs. was never real interested. None of my patients discovered me here (that I know of) and now that I’m retired it’s even less likely.
I don’t think I have posted anything here I wouldn’t mind my wife and kids knowing. I’ve other places I can vent more personal stuff if/when I need to.
I know what you mean. Years ago, my husband joined a message board I was very active on, and although I was happy to share it with him, it changed how I interacted there in some ways. I’ve often thought he’d be right at home here, and if he decided to join, that would be…okay, I guess.
My daughter has occasionally threatened to join here, but I’ve told her that if she does, I’ll get active on Tumblr. MAD works!
Actually, I ended up joining the Straight Dope because of my daughter. She was at the age where she was asking hundreds of questions, and I found a lot of them I didn’t know were answered by this thing called the Straight Dope.
Then I started checking out the SDMB. Then I responded to one of the articles.
Mrs. Geek knows I post here. She has a pre-Discourse account here (Mrs.Geek) but she has only posted once back in 2009 to comment on the passing of our friend and fellow doper danceswithcats. She attended several Gettysdopes but otherwise hasn’t been involved much on the SDMB. I really doubt that she will ever update her account for Discourse.
I get where the OP is coming from. Mrs. Geek isn’t really involved in the SDMB. She doesn’t read the board and outside of a few dopefests many years ago she doesn’t really participate in any way here. The SDMB isn’t a secret, but anything I post here is essentially private unless I go to the bother of actually showing it to her.
My kids also know I post here, but I don’t think they have ever bothered to look up anything that I have posted. They just don’t care.
If they ever do, I hope they’ll recognize that I was blowing off steam in the moment.
