Name Game

I can completely relate with how smokedamage finds it strange always being called "Smokey" as that is not his name nor was it ever a name for him back home.

I have grown accustomed to a couple of individuals upon occasion referring to me predominantly by a nickname, but it was only a very small portion of folks, meaning only 2-3 people at the most. Nikki has in the past always been used as one such nickname, just as I am quite used to my sister calling me Nic. If she calls me anything else it sounds funny. However, Nikki was never a persistent name. I began using it online to denote my "online personality" rather than coming up with something completely different and foreign. It helped put me into a certain mindset which in turn would flavor my online words and actions in a certain manner.

I never really thought much about it until meeting more and more people who began actually knowing me as Nikki. The strangest thing that I have come to notice recently is that due to the use of this name as now my most predominant name, that online personality seems to have taken control of a large portion of my real life actions and thoughts. Introspectively speaking, I don't feel like myself. I know that I am all one person and that both the real life and the online life are all aspects of the same being, but I am just starting to feel like I've been living someone else's life, and it doesn't feel quite like "me". I just find this realization odd.