i like to keep fairly anonymous

i'm not ashamed of who i am or my beliefs or my thoughts. i express myself freely to my friends, family and co-workers as i do on my blogs. i just don't choose to share my name with strangers. i'm rather private.

i don't think i'd get fired. i rarely blog about my work and when i do, it's usually in a positive light (i LOVE my job and my co-workers. i also think my company has some rather progressive policies - after all it IS european). my friends know about my blogs and most of them don't read them (why should they bother, they get ME mouthing off in person).

even on social networking sites i don't exactly use my real name. hell, i do NOT want to 'befriend' someone i don't like. i have no patience and i don't suffer fools gladly.


i try not to be cruel although i have attacked the right now and again.

The coming-out stories of anonymous bloggers

By John D. Sutter
CNN

- Blog fans in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, saw PittGirl as their masked superhero -- a comedian and local commentator who jibed the mayor without reserve and ranted freely about her hatred of pigeons.

But despite her effort to keep her real name secret, people started to figure out who PittGirl was.

Feeling pressure to take control of her identity before someone else outed her, PittGirl on Wednesday posted pictures of herself on her blog and introduced readers to her real-world self: Virginia Montanez, a 35-year-old married mother of two who worked in the nonprofit sector.

"My friends and family call me Ginny," she wrote on her blog. "But you can continue to call me Your Majesty, because I've grown accustomed."

On Thursday morning, Montanez was fired from her job because of her online persona, she said.

Montanez's and other online coming-out stories highlight the complicated way people view anonymity on the Internet and the high stakes that come with trying to keep up an online persona.

The reasons people want to be anonymous online vary. Political whistle blowers fear retribution; employees want to separate the personal from the professional; artists want their work to stand up without an attached biography; and some writers like Montanez take on a sort of Everyman quality by keeping their real names off their posts.......