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Your partner's/family's relationship to this board; what do they know?

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    Your partner's/family's relationship to this board; what do they know?

    My partner is pretty reluctant when it comes to using any kind of social media, though she makes an exception for WhatsApp as this involves closed chats. She is on Facebook but only due to work reasons (and would simply never upload personal photos), and has never used Twitter in her life. (I have an account, but the only time I look at it is when posters such as Nefertiti or ursus draw our attention to interesting threads. And even then the format of the platform ends up driving me half-mad!)

    I’ve been posting on various online forums since 2003 or so, and my partner has met (physically) some good people directly due to this, so she’s perfectly aware that online relationships and friendships can be very much a positive thing. But at the same time I think she might be surprised at quite how much what she would term personal information I give away on these boards. Like most of us, I try not to post stuff that is in my view too intrusive or potentially harmful or embarrassing to people I know in “real” life, and I also tend to shy away as much as possible from divulging too many of my own emotional ups and downs or too many details about the work I do. That said, I have posted an enormous number of words on past experiences, both happily nostalgic but sometimes more traumatic, such as the bullying thread I started. I haven’t shown this to my partner, and rather suspect that she might be, to say the least, astonished that I would post such intimacies to a bunch of strangers.

    I also suspect that she doesn’t really know quite how much time I spend online, and thinks that I’m doing work stuff on the laptop instead! I’m not trying to deceive her intentionally, but maybe attempting to pretend that I’m not quite as hooked as I am!

    (I also read online media much more than she does, though this doesn’t necessarily mean I’m more up to date with news than her. But she far prefers the print media.)

    So, I’m interested in how much other members’ partners/wives/husband's/families/etc. are aware of (or could actually give a shit!) what they post here and elsewhere (do they ever read it?) and whether this has at any time caused irritation, resentment or tension of any kind. In my case, this hasn’t happened, probably because I have been able to separate this internet usage from the other stuff I do around the flat.


    #2
    Mrs Thistle knows that I call her Mrs Thistle on here and I guess she could easily find out what I say about her by reading it. She hasn't shown much interest, bu I do tell her about interesting things I've read on here. There have been times when I have needed somewhere to post about things, like after my dad died, and I feel this is a pretty safe space to do that.

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      #3
      They know the lot.

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        #4
        The wife and I are aware of one anothers social media habits, she generally visits music forums, and a swedish messageboard called flashback (being Swedish, not just weirdly niche and twee), she's aware of what I've posted on here and a couple of subreddits for various music artists and computer games, but nothing's off topic.
        Personally speaking, I'd rather be on my own than with somebody for whom certain topics were off-limits, spent too much time around people like that as it was.

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          #5
          I don't think any family members know I post on here - bar a cousin who very briefly contributed to the old board.

          Nor, I imagine, would they especially care.

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            #6
            My wife knows I post on a number of forums (fora?) but she has no interest in them whatsoever so wouldn't know the names of any that I do.

            Every now and then I'll tell her about something that has been posted on here and she'll feign interest.

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              #7
              On the subject of sharing stuff I put things on here that I'd never post elsewhere. I've always found the board membership here to be very wise and sympathetic and usually able to give great advice.

              Signora Rogin rolls her eyes and refers to OTF as my "weird bunch on the internet" whenever in real-life company I relate things I've heard on here.
              Last edited by Rogin the Armchair fan; 01-05-2020, 09:40.

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                #8
                Mrs hoc knows I come on OTF, and has in fact met a number of (mostly former) posters on various nights out in London (two posters from here - one ex, one now very occasional - have actually been to stay at our house). She doesn't have any interest in the board though i will occasionally report things I've read here that I think she might find interesting. She humours me at least. Further afield, one of my two brothers very occasionally posts here, and he and one of his sons are involved in the OTF Xpert 11 football league.

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                  #9
                  Mrs P knows that I've been an active member of online communities since long before we met so she's used to it. She's met a few people from various forums - OTF gets the thumbs up because the people she has met from here "aren't weirdos".

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                    #10
                    Which begs a big question about the other forums you're in.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                      Mrs P knows that I've been an active member of online communities since long before we met so she's used to it. She's met a few people from various forums - OTF gets the thumbs up because the people she has met from here "aren't weirdos".
                      Phew.

                      Mrs. S knows about my “football forum” where we often don’t talk about football. She’s aware about Mundane, Great Tits and Dog Adoption, and that I’ve met some decent people from here IRL. Like some above I post things here I wouldn’t share with anyone else, and while I don’t discuss that at home, there’s nothing secretive about it. I don’t think she’s especially fussed TBH. In the past she was on the Archers board (BBC) and still has friends locally she met there. Similarly a board devoted to actor Richard Armitage. I have zero interest in those conversations so I guess it’s the same in reverse.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Sporting View Post
                        Which begs a big question about the other forums you're in.
                        Even I describe them as "Nerds, nerding it around in nerdland".

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
                          They know the lot.
                          Erm, likewise.

                          We gossip about youse lot behind your backs anarl.

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                            #14
                            As noted before, L (who I refer to as Mrs WOM...but who is not...as she would never have taken my name) refers to you collectively as 'your soccer dudes'.

                            She often asks what you're up to or what we're rowing about today.

                            She's met (and is quite taken with) two of you, so she gets that you're not a bunch of Captain Sweatpants in your mother's basements.

                            I don't think she could care less what I post, but I'm not trying too hard to find out.

                            Oh, and as a teacher, her social media use is practically nil as she's a big ol' privacy nut. I think she's only on Instagram and Pinterest.

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                              #15
                              The Lady I Walked To The Registry Office With has met one member of this board. She was astonished that, contrary to her expectations of "your chatroom nerds", he was not only excellent company, but also not wearing a too-tight football shirt/chainmail vest and gauntlets/Darth Vadar outfit.

                              (It's a good job she didn't meet the only other member of the board whom I've met, in his home village in Schleswig-Holstein. He turned up with his gumboots on the wrong feet, kept shaking his fist at aeroplanes passing overhead and, on more than one occasion, shouted, "You got to spit it out your nose!" to other people at the Christmas market.)

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by Sporting View Post
                                I also suspect that she doesn’t really know quite how much time I spend online, and thinks that I’m doing work stuff on the laptop instead! I’m not trying to deceive her intentionally, but maybe attempting to pretend that I’m not quite as hooked as I am!

                                Yes, very much this. I find OTF a hugely pleasurable thief of my time and try to disguise the fact.

                                OTF is the only messageboard I post on and my social media usage is low, but OTOH my wife's involvement in such things is lower still, which makes me feel rather guilty when I'm on here rather than fixing a leaking tap or composing a letter to HMRC, like now! So when I want to relate an interesting opinion or anecdote I've picked up on here I usually just say that I saw something on the Net but without giving any details.

                                My son knows about the board, though thankfully is unaware of my current username, but no-one else in the family knows or cares. I'm more open with my friends, few of whom seem to be big messageboard/social media users either, oddly enough, at least not as far as I know.

                                I love the fact that we're so relatively open about our lives and emotions and the board is invariably wise, supportive and encouraging when people share important things. But I am also aware that there are always hundreds, often thousands, of non-board members viewing the threads. Which occasionally makes me feel rather uncomfortable about some of the things I've written and also slightly vulnerable.

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                                  #17
                                  The guests are mostly bots, aren't they? There aren't *that* many of us.

                                  I guess some people might browse the site without being logged in.


                                  Mrs AB knows I come here and post occasionally. She couldn't give a hoot what I write, knowing I'm not that profilic a poster in any event, and seems to appreciate that there's a lot of wisdom and reasoned analysis here.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by Auntie Beryl View Post
                                    The guests are mostly bots, aren't they? There aren't *that* many of us.

                                    I guess some people might browse the site without being logged in.

                                    I'm not sure. I presume that some are but I thought that a lot were just people surfing the Net for a particular topic and alighting upon the board, if only briefly. Perhaps Snake Plissken knows.

                                    As per the front page there are 222 active members so we're perhaps a slightly larger community than we think we are.

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                                      #19
                                      Much larger apparently. I keep meaning to find ways to take the load off the servers a bit - I remember talking to the hosts about it.

                                      (Which reminds me, I also keep meaning to take World out of the bot crawl.)

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                                        #20
                                        I don't have many family members left at this stage anyway. This is the only social media that I'm on, I don't do Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, though I'm thinking of joining the latter. My brother knows about it, and I regularly send him good stuff from here. He's on all the above, and keeps me in touch with gigs and events I'd be interested in. My sister doesn't know, and would have no interest if she did.

                                        I've met one OTFer, circumstances made it a brief meeting, more's the pity.

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                                          #21
                                          I was lurking for years before I joined, I doubt I'm the only one. Was too scared by Toro to join back then.

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                                            #22
                                            Even I lurked for a few months

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                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                                              (Which reminds me, I also keep meaning to take World out of the bot crawl.)
                                              What does this mean?

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                                                #24
                                                Afternoon all. Just for the record, in the Era before Corona Virus (Status Quo Auntie Beryl as I call it), 103 members managed 200 posts in 2019, a further 37 reaching the century).

                                                My family and neighbors don't take much interest in my comments on social or other media, at least since the 1980s when they suggested I use an alias and withheld address

                                                Anyone in touch with Toro? I'm rather embarrassed to recall a photo of him dry humping his pushbike, it's in the Dalkey Archive somewhere

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                                                  #25
                                                  Originally posted by Bruno View Post

                                                  What does this mean?
                                                  The World subsection not being indexed by Google. Most of the other forums that I am on hide that on from the search crawlers and sometimes only allow signed up members to view, mainly because that area has more personal discussion.

                                                  Just spitballing on a slow Friday afternoon.

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