I imagine it's not just me, but I am wondering about the odd "disconnect" I feel when people talk about a post of mine & say "Rob said this..."; & I know that means me, but my actual name is not Rob, not even close to "Rob" (Rob Anybody is an awesome character from Terry Pratchett's novels - Nac Mac Feegle!! Crivens!). The reason I even posted this is I just referred to
@Birdjaguar as "Bird" in a recent post, & wondered if he felt the same (granted, after I posted it).
Not saying anyone should stop, or it's bad, or unusual. I also certainly don't mean to conflate it to when people Quote my posts. Just asking does
@Lexicus feel weird when people say "As Lex said..."; or
@Sommerswerd when someone says "As Sommer just said...". Or
@Valka D'Ur if someone says "Valka just said..." Do y'all ever get this weird disconnect that I do? Like "oh, wait, they mean me"? Just curious how others.. "relate" to being addressed (not quoted, but addressed) not just by their forum name, but by a derivative of their forum name? Is it weird for anyone else?
It's not weird at all. I spent 12 years in the SCA being addressed by some combination of "Freydis of Gloppenfjord", whether it was that, or "Lady Freydis" (after I was granted my Award of Arms), or in formal court situations, "Lady Freydis Aelfhilda of Gloppenfjord" (seriously, court heralds should learn how to pronounce people's names before calling them; he absolutely mangled my name to the point that I wasn't even sure it was me he was talking about). In everyday situations, people in the SCA, whether local or those who knew me in the neighboring baronies, just called me "Freydis."
There are people to this day who still don't know me by any other name, and when I roomed with non-SCA friends at science fiction conventions, I had to remind them that "if anyone calls the room asking for "Freydis", it's not a wrong number - they want to talk to me." Even in non-SCA settings, those of us in the local Shire tended to call each other by our SCA names. That was handy in my case, as there were two of us with the same mundane (non-SCA) name and this helped to avoid confusion. I still refer to her by her SCA nickname, derived from her formal name, even though it's been nearly 25 years since we were both active. If anyone were to address me as "Freydis" now, I wouldn't have a problem answering to it, as it became part of my identity 37 years ago (the "Aelfhilda" portion was chosen in honor of my great-aunt; that was her actual first name, though she went by "Elsie" so people wouldn't struggle with and mangle her real name).
In fact, I recently reconnected with someone I knew from all those years ago, and he's been trying to persuade me to join his D&D group. If I do, I'm going to ask him to call me "Freydis" because his wife has the same first name as me, and conversations are already confusing when both of them are on the speakerphone and I don't know which of us he's addressing sometimes.
The only time things got weird with my SCA name is when one of the people in the Shire introduced me to her grandchildren as "Auntie Freydis". Whereupon the kids were confused and asked if I was their dad's sister or their mom's sister and I told them neither, I'm just their grandma's friend. She felt it would be disrespectful to have them just call me "Freydis"... but I told them it was okay and would be less confusing than have them wonder why they should call me "auntie" when I wasn't part of their family.
So in the case of online forum identities, I'm fine with being addressed as Valka, referred to as Valka, and if I ever meet any of you in offline life, I'm still fine with being called Valka. I've had that name as one of my identities for over 18 years now, and have grown rather attached to it. There have been a few nicknames over the years as well, and they're fine as long as they're meant in a friendly way and the person respects my wish that they don't use a nickname I don't like - for example, I don't want to be called "Val". I REALLY don't want anyone here to just use the initials (the reason for that should be obvious).
(My real first name is so common that one year in the theatre, there were FIVE of us, and it was godawful confusing when the director wanted to speak to one of us. There was the stage manager, one of her junior crew, two women in the cast, and me - head of the properties crew. The director ended up calling me "Props!" during rehearsals if she needed me to do something or answer a question.)
I have other forum identities here and there, and have mentioned them to a few people if they ever go to those sites and want to say hi. Of course anyone I've exchanged email addresses with knows my offline name (which I don't ever want used in the public forum, though it's okay in PM).
Oh, and
@RobAnybody: If anyone walked up to you on the street and called you that, it would be awkward if a cop overheard...
