Not really virtual, but it's as close as I could come to coining a conceptual term for it.

A new Café friend recently emailed me and asked a question about how she might convey a message of gratitude to another Café friend in a comment post without making a Big Deal out of it.  I didn't remember reading her friend's thread she was alluding to, but I have been considering it for a couple days.  I was having mind-pictures of their possible relationship, and how it was necessarily almost totally based on words on a computer screen, and each of their perceptions and memories of those words and expressions.  Yikes.

My musings led me further to wondering about the kerfuffle some of us have been engaged in at the Café recently, and about some of the elements that might be at play when we attempt to dialogue here, and the facts that influence what are really, just typed-on-a-keyboard messages and comments.

Anonymity must play a huge part in it all.  We can present ourselves as anyone we want to be; no one knows our names, our social or economic statuses, our work, our physical descriptions, our ages--unless we reveal them.  And as some wag pointed out a few weeks ago:  I use my own name; but how do you know I'm not making it up?  .But in the end, we don't have to be accountable for ourselves past the online communities we hang out in, at least until we change our screen names.

Lots of us choose avatars to represent ourselves, and they must mean something to us.  Some are icons we're all familiar with, some are art projects, some are hideous, some are flagrantly in-your-face, and some are cartoon characters or animals or birds.  And we can change them at will; but we choose them for a reason.

One of the most common truths about online communication is the lack of inhibition, or typing things we probably would not say in person.  When we speak in person, we can get some cues from our listeners as to how they might be taking our comments, myriad possibilities of facial expressions, body language, any of which could influence our words.  Online we can be pissy at will.  We can also feel dissociated from blogging life, as though it's something we can walk away from; almost as though our words have no consequences in real life, whatever that is. (smile)  The loss of inhibition has upsides and downsides; it can move people to share more of themselves without fear of judgment from family or friends.  It can cause us to be generous and charitable, but it can also loosen our cruel sides, and we become more critical and harsh, or worse, than we are in our daily lives

We bring a lot of ourselves to the table at the Café; we perceive what we read through our own lenses, and we can react in the moment in ways that are colored by our past experiences, good, bad or whatever.  For instance, say if I have a chich with Mr. Authoritarian Voice, whose voice do I hear in my head?  It might be someone whose authority I either battled or succumbed to in my past, and I react even more strongly in the present.  Or I can get an attitude: recently I asked a blogger what she meant by something she wrote, and he (turned out he was a "he") answered that he was talking about the immorality of tearing those sweet babies out of their mothers' wombs."  I swear to God, I still can click to open his blogs, looking for something else he might have to say, something I might even agree with a little, though I seem to be catching on to this futility (another smile). You can imagine scores of other examples.

I've noticed that, try as I may, I can react to certain avatars the same way, whether it's the actual avatar or associations with the content that the avatar has come to represent to me.  It's hard to take each remark on its own merit.

 I find it frustrating that there aren't many ways to convey how my words are intended, and I suppose others of you may feel that way.  Or I might not type all the words I meant to type, hit Submit, and only find out later I Screwed Up; meanwhile maybe people had commented to that which I hadn't meant at all.  It happened this morning, and I even had thought I was clear enough about what I had said.  Unless a person has the time to baby-sit a blog and the comments, the blog can take on a life of its own.  We project ourselves onto the writing; I think that fact is inescapable.  We can validate each other, attack each other, or even help each other see other parts of an issue.  Often I need time to pass before I can comment, and so often the thread is just closing when I post.  Most of you seem to answer each other jig-quick, like a reflex; for me, my first reaction is not always that worthy...of course, you may not like my second or third, but...there it is. (smile)

I hear experts say that lots of people claim they are more nearly their "true selves" online.  Gads, I hope not, and I doubt it.  I've been wondering how much different any of us are from who and what we project at the Café, whether it's intentional or not, and if we shouldn't be checking out some of the possible dangers of that?

If I say to my husband, "So-and-so said this to me online, harrumph! " I have to wonder if I'm not just a leeetle bit over-invested in this other Reality.

This is my entrée after a hiatus here; I have been upset by attacks lately.  I didn't like the conservatives' attacks all that much, but when the Lefties started jumping me, I really didn't like it.  I had been thinking that I didn't have to be in lock-step with every belief on the left, or that there was plenty of room for discussion, anyway. 

Anyway, I am just one of the Virtual People, but I will try to remember that we are all really human beings and act accordingly.