on acquiring additional names: for me two people come to mind who have multiple names, namely you and myself. (there are probably others, but my brain is lazy.) in your case, well, I think it helped that you were introduced to me as Talia, so as far as I was concerned that was your name, even if there were other people who called you something else
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i've always found it entertaining that, despite what might be logically expected, i've never felt the need to use a gender-neutral or masculine name, though i easily could (lee or chris, say). so pronouns aren't a problem.
i haven't tried it on anyone who's known me forever and ever, and i probably won't, b/c it seems hard. friends get confused enough about my facebook profile. most of my problems occur when i'd usually be talia but can't, b/c someone else around already knows my real name and won't reliably switch for me. also, comments on lj.
i was hoping you'd answer, even though your situation is somewhat distinct from either mine or ntn's.
i'm actually just not using anything that isn't in public profiles. originally this was a conversation about trying to establish an alternate name at burning man, where playa names definitely happen, but for various reasons, it didn't work too well, and we were trying to figure out why i succeed as much as i do in an environment slightly more interested in Proper Identification
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while i understand why the language and definitions used there are useful, my brain falls over at 'survivor-blaming'. also, it's a v. boiled-down snapshot of all the issues that i keep seeing in current feminist discussions (safe space, triggers, men, reclamation of language, privilege) that i see in other places and laugh at, though like i said, they appear to be conducting themselves in a reasonable fashion.
Well, "triggers" is not mainly a feminist concept, and not all current feminists throw those terms around. But I don't follow a lot of such communities either, I mean, I got tired of Internet discussions as a substitute for social action (so now, I take part in neither, which is *definitely* an improvement :-D)
My problem was the opposite of yours, really. There were four people with my first name in Random, and given how small of a community Random is (and who some of the others with my name were) I thought it would be a good idea to make my name more distinctive. Of course, I was helped by the fact that people at MIT have a tendency to call each other by usernames anyway, but the fact that I started signing my e-mails as "lep" definitely helped.
I do understand the desire to be ungoogleable, though. Search for my last name and you get only my family members, me being relatively close to the top of the list. At some point, though, I just have to say, "Fuck it. I don't care what people call me, who knows who I am or where to find me, or anything. The wrong people will find out anyway."
yeah, i admit to failing at really being untraceable, but i still like to fight a vague battle against casual stalkers, as it were; i also haven't decided yet, but hopefully eventually my real name will go on cited papers, and this name will be the one i can play under.
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i haven't tried it on anyone who's known me forever and ever, and i probably won't, b/c it seems hard. friends get confused enough about my facebook profile. most of my problems occur when i'd usually be talia but can't, b/c someone else around already knows my real name and won't reliably switch for me. also, comments on lj.
i was hoping you'd answer, even though your situation is somewhat distinct from either mine or ntn's.
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(i think what I'm asking is, is ntn going by "ntn" IRL now? or are you just using the usual convention of shortening people to their username?)
and why do you go by Talia? I never understood thaht.
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I do understand the desire to be ungoogleable, though. Search for my last name and you get only my family members, me being relatively close to the top of the list. At some point, though, I just have to say, "Fuck it. I don't care what people call me, who knows who I am or where to find me, or anything. The wrong people will find out anyway."
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