Tag Archives: judgment

Are you a shadow of your Twitter self?

Shadows of two men talking, (Low angle view)A recent post by Alexandra Samuel on The Conversation, 10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life, contends that IRL is a lie and sign that we are in denial about reality (and life) in the 21st century.  While I agree with many of the points Samuel made, it got me thinking about people who, pardon the term, IRL are polar opposite to who you meet when the relationship moves offline.

We’ve all been there. Hit it off on Twitter and decided to meet for coffee. Been twit-matched by another tweep because we seem like a perfect virtual match, but sat in an awkward silence face-to-face. Wondered if we had the right Twitter handle show up to make our IRL acquaintance. On the flip side, we’ve all gotten what we thought we were getting when taking a relationship from virtual to face-to-face terms.  (Although, I’m sure one could contend that Skype gives us a virtual face-to-face relationship, but, alas, I digress.) The question is: how and why does it happen? Continue reading