friends in RL

Im with CE... I consider several on here real friends and I am FB friends with some, but not met in person yet. Yet....

I don't give out my RL info to anyone, but I consider a few people on here to be very good friends. We pm a lot, and I have sent out cards.

Yikes, after reading my response I realized that I have crossed my own boundaries!!!! For me to suggest a gathering of some sort was premature and maybe even inappropriate. That's not to say it wouldn't be great to meet you all someday, it would be.... but after processing my over enthusiasm I realized that I felt uncomfortable with this and hope that it didn't make anyone else feel the same, if it did I apologize

I'm starting to feel like the exception... I've never had any RL or FB contact with anyone from the site. I've also never met anyone from an online site in RL (with the exception of online dating; send a few message and then meet in person). This is also the only online forum I've ever joined.

I don´t know if anybody feels anywhere near similar but for me meeting anybody from here would be super scary stuff. In real life I´m very closeted I don´t let people see "the real me" and I do not talk about any of my inner self with anybody really. Here thanks to the great anonymity and supportive enviroment I feel like I can open up for the first time ever. I write suff here I never shared with anyone (maybe my T only) and it is a completely different level of sharing and vulnerability then I´m used to. So seeing anybody irl who knows so much about me would feel like walking around naked and worse........just not possible at all.

I'm actually the same. I still like to think that I could talk to someone in real life though. Pipe dream probably.

I do expose a LOT more of myself on here than I do in my real life. People on here know things about me that some of my best friends don't. The "real life" friends I have from here know even more than the stuff I say publicly on the forum. So I can see where meeting a person who knows so much about you in person could seem scary. For me, it was totally comfortable -- that person already knows SO much about me and still doesn't think I'm disgusting, that meeting in person was not a huge step.

MKAC...I am the same way. People on here are closer to me and know me better than any of my RL friends. Much better. SO, it pays not to know my secret real identity.

For what it's worth, Wikid, I have found it enormously healing to have someone who knows me that well know my secret identity.

I bet it is healing. I´m sure it would send me to a great panic and it would feel horrible and scary at the beggining but once that gets worked out. I could imagine the releave it could bring...no pretend no mask ...just me for once.
But for that you have to be ready.

I have all sorts of weird anxiety and social issues and I did it. Don't let any of that crap stop you.

It honestly wasn't even all that weird. My T even spent some time talking to me about how weird it would be. Of course I imagine he assumed that I'd be the one being weird, because he knows me very well .

well thats what was weird about the pc conference, wasnt? Aside from that it was a mille mille de toute terre habite. Ie you totally couldnt get there from effin anywhere, train, boat, car or plane!!@ next time, dr john, two words - AIRPORT HOTEL!!

Eta: how could you not love me?? Who else do you know who quotes (badly) from the little prince??

I've talked on the phone with a few PCers, and shared our real names and email addresses. I met someone who posted on a different forum and posted here for a while too. I was a little scared but it was nice to be able to talk in person with someone who knew all about me! I can't talk so honestly with any of my friends in RL.

I'd like to meet more people on PC in RL. I have nothing to hide from them. What scares me is if someone on PC is in my RL and has figured out who I am. That would embarrass me.

I value the friends I have made on here every bit as much as I do the people in my offline life. I realize how intimate the relationships developed on this forum are. We share our emotions and feelings on here...there is no wrong or right...that is what I like the most about this site...non judgmental. With the exception of very few , there is nobody in my life (outside of this forum) who are aware of my challenges, my vulnerability, my darkest moments. For all they know I am this person who appears to have their sh** together. They know not of the silent hell that I live through much of the time...and that is how I want it.

Meeting any of you in person would be a bit of a challenge. Stopdog might be easiest.

If I were not anonymous, I would never post here at all. PC covers a vast territory, so I feel confident that no one could ever know who I was. Many of us have similar thoughts anyway so I could be anyone at all.

I do think it's nice though that some of you have made connections.

Stopdog is popular I see

I see no reason to meet stopdog in person. Half my brain IS stopdog in person.

I was inpatient near where I live. Met another patient. Then realized I know her from PC. I have not disclosed that I know her though. It's hard enuff for me...why should she suffer too.

That was so kind and unselfish of you! I hope life rewards your good deed tenfold back to you.