Oh my gosh. How many zillions of people have done the same thing or something similar? I've TOTALLY lied ATROCIOUSLY about who I was in chatrooms in my adolescence.

Come to my house and apologize. Bring the girlfriend. Somebody has to teach her how to use a paddle.

(This is why I will never get paid to do Dan's Job.)

Right! Except I reject the notion of sin. It's another myth.

Had seven years to proofread this shit, and still couldn't be bothered to fix that typo! =P

Ugh, I wish we could get followups on these reposted questions.

Here I am right now on SLOG pretending to be a naked cartoon character.

No harm, no foul.

@1, Never mind adolescence. I've done this a gazillion times as an adult.

BTW, those FBI agents are so transparent. And yet, they always seem to garner attention from at least one person in every room.

I'm a damn peculiar person. No judgement on others but I have never portrayed myself as anything other than the truth. If anything a tad disparagingly. Never lied about age or weight or sex. Oh well.

The lure of guilt is how important it makes you. Oh, the *terrible* thing's YOU've done, they are so filled w/ consequences. The Bible is full of this ego-pumping crap, because the God of the Bible is an egomaniac. Time to get over it already.

Yes, yes, you lied to some people. Years ago. Who have all assuredly moved on. The only thing left to do is for you to get over yourself.

CAD my question is what do you want your girlfriend to do about it? Unless she has access to a time machine she can't stop you from visiting those chat rooms. She can't apologize to the people you were talking with [many of whom I'm sure completely forgot about it]. So what good would confessing do?

I mean it's great if you've found someone you can share you're deepest secrets with but it's not a good idea to use you significant other as confession booth/therapist.

@8,
You're not alone, I've always been myself as well. Never tried pretending to be someone else.

I also never had any judgment for those who did pretend, in fact, I figured most of the people I was talking with were pretending. I didn't mind. They were probably just having fun or they were nervous or something.

CAD. Save the guilt for something worth feeling bad about. Nobody cares if you faked a different ID. It's really a phase a whole lot of people went through when the internet came around - we tried it just to see if we could pull it off. As you've discovered, it's hard to keep the lies straight. Move on, but remember it's better to tell the truth even if you're talking anonymously.

@8, @12--That makes three of us. Well, except that I posted a picture of a rabbit without asking him.

@8, 12, 14 : does pretending (only once) to be an incensed Bush supporter, in order to frighten away a moronic Bush supporter trolling on my turf, count ?

It worked.

@15 you are going to hell straight to hell and staying there forever and forever.
CAD, if you think in terms of confession, you are still under that mythical preacher's sway. And I would feel much better if you would use some creativity. Make up some really weird sh_t to be guilty over and confess that instead. "Sweetie, when i was 16, I used to dip my mom's chihuahua in butter and rub him all over my butt cheeks." That sort of thing. Have some FUN with your guilt!

I'd tell her, if for no other reason than to see how she reacts. Because if she holds this against you and is seriously shocked, if this could endanger the relationship - you wanna find that out about her sooner rather than later.

So, CAD, you did some stupid shit when you were a teen. Wow! You must be the only teen in the history of history to have ever done something dumb. Oh, wait. No, you're not the only teen to have yadda-yadda, only to regret it years later. The best response is not to go on a guilt trip (which your upbringing would most likely encourage ... because guilt is a very useful tool for EVERY authoritarian group), but to acknowledge that you did something stupid, and vow not to do something like that again. Which I believe you've already done.

What purpose would it serve to reveal this to your girlfriend? Might she then expect that you want her to reveal something stupid from her past? If you can truly say that your past behaviour will not affect your current or future relationship, then Just. Let. It. Go.

OTOH, should you have some lingering desire to engage in gender role play IRL, then it's up to you to focus on that issue and decide whether you want to talk about that instead.

how do you know all those people weren't also pretending to be someone else, either?

Whoever has never pretended to be a lesbian online throw me the first stone.

@22: yeah, I was actually about to call BS about the lack of USA goals, since they've had a solid run of form lately, but then I remembered this was written in 2006. We crashed out of the World Cup in the first round, despite a win over Italy thanks to Clint Dempsey, so yeah, we kinda sucked in 2006...

Chat rooms didn't exist when I first hit puberty. Nor did I have electricity, for that matter, but that's another story.