The Real You vs Your Personas

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Yup, I definitely have a variety of personas.

There's real me, which can be described by gross oversimplification as intellectual, logical thinking over emotional thinking, fairly cynical, very humor oriented (puns and witty jokes and racist jokes and everything in between), loud and talkative, always ready to debate and/or argue over anything from major philosophical questions to stupid "would you rather" style hypothetical scenarios, and often arrogant as well. As far as real life goes, only my immediate family really sees this persona, and pretty much only at home or otherwise in private.

Then there's my general out in public persona. I'm actually rather introverted, which is why only my immediate family really sees the real deal. My public persona cuts out pretty much everything but the intellectual and logical thinking bits, because I tend to just not join in on conversations unless I have a worthwhile (usually factually based) comment to make, and then after delivering it I'll go back to being quiet.

I also have a work persona, because despite working graveyard shift security I still have to interact with people. There are always a few minutes of interaction with coworkers briefly during shift changes, and there are a couple hours at the end of each shift where the building I work at is open and people are coming through the lobby to go to their own jobs, plus now and then I have to talk to the homeless people trying to camp out on the property and tell them to leave. One of my job duties is to greet people as they enter whenever the building is open, so I can't just passively sit there at the desk and try to avoid talking to people as I would very much like to do. This persona is actually closer to real me than the general public persona, because a slight bit of talkativeness and humor slip in there, generally in the form of small talk and boring family friendly jokes.

Then for the internet I've got two major variations. The first is for chat rooms and voice chats, which is close to real me but kind of exaggerated in some aspects, particularly the joking and the arrogance (which I greatly overplay online because it's funny), but nowadays I downplay my natural argumentativeness a lot for a variety of reasons. Then there's the forum version of my internet persona which is the chat persona but kind of... refined? Distilled? I can't think of any better word for it. What I'm getting at here is that on forums I can take my time to get my intended phrasing just right and self-censor anything I decide is too stupid to say or might be offensive enough to get me in trouble. It's basically my chat persona with generally better typing/phrasing and less goofy mistakes.

As for roleplay characters, eh, I've never made a self-insert of any of my personas, but there are aspects of myself in most (quite possibly all) of my characters. For instance, my favorite character at the moment is Kasim, an ex-slave archer who is extremely arrogant and rather hammy, and whose main motivations in life are to be renowned as a hero and to get laid at all opportunities; the arrogance and humorously hammy shenanigans are things that can definitely come from the heart, as it were. In that same roleplay (Brovo's Legend of Renalta) I also play Zin, a vampire mage who came from a rich merchant family background, and who is a generally logical thinker but also a coward and a pacifist whose main motivation is to simply not die because she's terrified of the unknown that lurks beyond that final horizon; the only real connection there to my actual personality is the logic > emotions in decision-making, and that's not a very strong link at all. When I make characters I purposely make them have pronounced differences from myself, because I want to play a character, not myself chucked into a fantasy world.
 
Very interesting topic, love reading the other responses.

For me it's pretty simple. Online me is the real deal. I'm much more outgoing, loud and cocky online than face to face. Might be distance or privacy, not sure really, but I've always felt I can express myself more sincerely when I talk to somebody online.

In real life I'm very quiet, disinterested and shy, if not a tad rude as well. Around here everybody knows everybody, so the pressure to fit in an remain off the radar is unusually big. If I stopped using my RL persona I'd probably get labelled a gay communist femnazi or something, and I don't fancy being the social outcast.

I've never really bonded with someone well enough to show them my online persona face to face, either. If I do that, I've put them on the top of my list. Not even my dysfunctional family gets that far up.

So, it's a way of dealing with problems for me. I'd love to be as cocky and full of myself as I am online, but in real life it would get me more trouble than it's worth.
 
OH MY GOD DIANA, what have you done? You basically asked everyone to make a character sheet. I'll go old before I finish this thread.

Here's the ilium version:

- I am the same with everyone.
- Alcohol loosens my four humours.
- I have a parallel, more sweary, no-PC-allowed version for some friends I have known online for 10 years. We are so rude with each other that rudeness has lost meaning.
 
I'm not sure that I'd consider adjustments in behaviour to accommodate different surroundings to be a change of persona. Different situations require varying degrees of formality and tentativeness, and it would be overly critical to consider those sorts of changes in behaviour to be adoptions of a new persona. A change in mood is also not the same as a change in persona; the you that you are has a multitude of different psychological states, but all of them are still you.
 
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Nowadays, it takes too much effort to determine whether there is a difference of persona between who I am in reality and how I present myself in certain contexts. 'Sides, as Nex pointed out, those are more facets of myself than actual distinct personas. The distinction here being that they occur relatively naturally, not through any determined effort.

However, that being said, there was a point in my life when I did have a distinct persona. When I was young, maybe middle-school-aged, I very much disliked who I was. Lacking in meaningful interactions and friends, I tended to isolate myself completely out of fear of doing the wrong thing.

In order to repair this, I developed a persona that took aspects of myself I enjoyed and enhanced versions of aspects I lacked. It was essentially an exaggerated version of what I am now.

I much preferred this persona to the real me, and used it almost exclusively, to the point that it has become who I am, though now streamlined. It comes naturally to me now—I actively rewrote my personality, and have been much happier because of it.

Of some note, it is for this reason that I have always rebelled against the idea that you should just be yourself, and if others can't accept you, then screw them. If you really want your life to change, then you need to change.
 
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Diana said:
Because you're forced to?
Click to expand...
Pretty much. The "real" me, the person at my core, is a cold, analytical, reclusive soul, who is perfectly happy staying away from the vast majority of the human race for several days, sometimes even weeks on end. When I do go out to see people, I put on a nice masquerade and go about life with a well practiced smile. Not because I hate happiness, or other people, it's just in my nature to be cynical, mistrusting, and private. The select few people, who I can count on one hand, that have gotten past that, have my undivided loyalty though. Those people know my hopes, dreams, weaknesses, and mistakes.

As for everyone else? They get the salesman smile. I mean well, I like to make people happy, but I know that people in general would not enjoy being around a calculating, analytical, emotionally stunted person. So that's what the masquerade around most other people is for: To make them feel more comfortable with someone who otherwise feels very little.

This includes the forums here. Why do you think I tend to use the adorableness of ferrets and my love of writing so much? It tends to cover up the otherwise completely flat, unsympathetic tone I have everywhere else. :ferret:
 
Well there is that 'ideal' personality-type I wanna achieve, basically there are things I dislike about other people so I try to not be that myself...but let's just say I am a hypocrite...maybe even a big one?
 
I am more introverted IRL, altough I cover it by being incredibly overly familiar with people. I am a deppressive, seeing a therapist. While my extroversion is me being very open to random people and trying to be as nonobtrusive as possible, I don't make alot of friends. I make close knit circles of friends, and I stay with them for life pretty much. I am a very split focus person, always looking for anew creative fix, and I have the patience of a 12 year old on speed. I used to be a compulsive liar becouse I could not stand rejection and I had guilt and anxiety problems since my childhood.
 
There's the real me...someone only 1 person has truly seen.
There's the real world me...it's just who I am for the most part.
There's then my characters...each one possess at least one aspect of who I am and if you want to learn which characters have what from me then all you gotta do is ask.
 
Not one god damned similarity.
 
Holmishire said:
However, that being said, there was a point in my life when I did have a distinct persona. When I was young, maybe middle-school-aged, I very much disliked who I was. Lacking in meaningful interactions and friends, I tended to isolate myself completely out of fear of doing the wrong thing.

In order to repair this, I developed a persona that took aspects of myself I enjoyed and enhanced versions of aspects I lacked. It was essentially an exaggerated version of what I am now.

I much preferred this persona to the real me, and used it almost exclusively, to the point that it has become who I am, though now streamlined. It comes naturally to me now—I actively rewrote my personality, and have been much happier because of it.

Of some note, it is for this reason that I have always rebelled against the idea that you should just be yourself, and if others can't accept you, then screw them. If you really want your life to change, then you need to change.
Click to expand...
This is SO... VERY... RECOGNIZABLE....


I also know that while it's easy to explain, the change itself is an ongoing process of years, and old habit die hard.


I guess I'm trying to say, major props!
 
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Shut up, you whore.
 
Study dicks. >:[
 
Do you have different versions of yourself you portray in different situations? Because you like to? Because you're forced to?

I have many different versions of myself because of not just past problems with people but the need to stay safe. I tend to act differently with people just depending on my comfort level, considering for the most part I am a recluse I don't like talking to people and would rather avoid them altogether. However, the instances where I am among people who I call friends, I have my outgoing and happy go lucky persona in place. Nobody can really (not even myself really, I have no freakin idea which of my personas is actually me) pinpoint who is who. Just stand on common ground on agreeing that I'm insane.

Do you have a persona that you use for online? Do you have characters that are based on you or your persona?

I do, but whoever can figure that out earns themselves a cookie. And no, mostly no. Sometimes, maybe, eh.
 
Uhhh. Online people seem to think I'm dude. In real life I'm a chick. So. Yeah. There's the biggest difference. XDD
 
The 'real' me? I don't think I could say. I feel like I'm constantly putting up an act, trying my best (often with poor results) to be a normal, functional member of whatever social circle I'm interacting with at the moment. This works fine for short interactions. I can chat up a cashier about their day hold a decent conversation with a stranger in an elevator. However, Longer or repeated interactions will generally reveal that I'm just making shit up and I have all the natural social ability of a squeaky door. I have great trouble forming solid opinions and like seeing issues from all angles, which is -once again- great for short interactions as I can at least partly agree with most peoples view on things but I'll generally feel obligated to play a bit of devil's advocate if they start getting too extreme.

Extreme for me being holding a strong enough opinion on something that you complain when someone has different one.

I have no aspirations and am content with simply living day by day, experience by experience. When people ask me ask me what I want to do with my life I'll lie. I'll say something like 'travel' or 'become a nurse' only so they don't give me a weird look or give me a speech on the shortness of life or some crap.

Online I'm just blunt. I feel no need to add to conversations I'm not 100% certain on and when I do add something it's usually present in a 'matter-of-fact' manner. I don't generally joke, as most them fall flat and others are just to offensive.

I would say I'm at my truest when I'm with a group of friends, I just have fun, be loud and spout out a constant stream of terrible jokes like a racist firehose with no chance of repercussion. although my friends rarely come to me for help (outside physical labour) which kinda bugs me, though I can understand why.
 
I don't think there's an answer to this question. What is the "real you", if in every different environment you put up a new front to better suit the company? Is the real you characterized by being alone, or in the environment you are most prevalent in? Since every experience shapes you in some way, how can you define this "real you", when opinions, beliefs and behaviours are not a constant?

There's so much to consider in this thread. The perception of a person on themselves tends to be the most biased.

HOW WILL I EVER KNOW THE REAL ME IF I CANNOT SEE THROUGH MY OWN SHROUDS OF PRIDE AND JUDGEMENT?! D:

*brain kersplosion*
 
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