Posted on 08/31/2008 8:12:32 PM PDT by martin_fierro
We all know that FreeRepublic is a great place to trade ideas/news/resources/knowledge/humor with similarly-minded people.
A lot of folks on here have made friends with complete strangers via this forum.
Other people have even met and gotten married through this site.
But does anyone have a story where they had seen a FReepers' posts on here and later discovered that they actually knew the poster in the "real world"?
(Celebrity posters like the late, great Tony Snow not included)
For instance, a guy I know at work cops to "visiting FR on a daily basis," but wouldn't admit to having an account on here. And he may not. But I didn't share my account name with him.
I post under my real name. Have for 10 years. And I invite multitudes of people in my daily life to read what I write. I know some do because they look at me in strange ways sometimes. :-}
We had a Freeper meeting here in Utah, we met at a diner south of Salt Lake City, and it was fun, but no, there was no one there I already knew.
We just spread the invitation among those Freepers registered for Utah.
It seems that happened four or five years ago now.
I have posted on FR for a long time, primarily under my current screen name. I was a linguist in VN and post frequently on topics that pertain to that; another person who posts contacted me and it turns out that we had met, years prior, in the Philippines. We’ve renewed our acquaintanceship since then.
Only one was in the local area.
“It’s A Small World After All”
No, but my mom lurks and figured out what my screen name was based on details I had posted. Luckily, she doesn’t know how to search the forum by poster. ; )
“Other people have even met and gotten married through this site.”
Maybe there’s hope after all.
Yeah, though I live in a “Red State”..more or less. INDIANA!
Me too. I've got nothing to hide. The people in my life know I'm a right-wing zealot. I have only partners, not bosses, and short of outright criminality there's really no significant repercussion I can suffer.
The only time I've regretted it is when I said unkind and intemperate things about Islam, forgetting the many decent and honorable individual Muslims I know. I am trying harder to to distinguish radical Islamism from the religion per se, not always with success, but otherwise I stand by what I say here.
-ccm
A couple of years ago I met up on FR with a neighbor who had just moved in less than a mile away.
Eight years ago I was surprised to find out I was sitting in the same row of the same class with another FReeper. It IS a small world.
I met a fellow through another site that turned out to be a freeper too.
I talked to a guy on here who exchanged work related emails with my mother-in-law. Otherwise, nothing too exciting.
I was chatting one day and realized a fellow FReeper came from my the same area as me.....we FReep mailed each other and it hit me who she was! I guess her name right away and she had me on her short list of five......we both still FReep.
oh, yeah. I learned about this site from another FReeper.....he still FReeps, too....although he moved away.
bttt
No. Have had pleasant exchanges with a couple from my area, not lately, I don't know too many people any more and think there aren't many FReepers where I live. I have met some nice folks here with whom I feel I can connect on some level.
I don't tell people in my life or elsewhere on the web I'm registered here because we're considered too right wing and a hate site. But there're more and more things I don't tell people, like that I'm a registered Republican, things like that, reluctant to share my political views and thoughts because my opinions aren't wanted. And I can talk to liberals offline believe it or not if they are in an even-tempered mood. If for no other reason, I like so many of the news articles and links that are posted, even the barf alert ones, keeps me feeling connected with the bigger world out there. I read other places, too, of course, don't post a whole lot anywhere.
Heh. My daughter comes in with an Obama t shirt offers it to me. No thanks, I don't want it in the house. Then I said, no I can't be like that. Then she puts it on lol, said it cost $10. She can ill afford to spend that on a t shirt. But she was asking me about Obama. So I told her I'd been researching about his voting record, some of his associations, she is clueless about what some of it might mean. She said I was just digging up dirt on him. I had to think about that for a day or more and informed her that I wasn't doing it to dig up dirt on him but I wanted to find out, if I could, some of the things that are swirling out there that the MSM won't report, if they are really true or if I am overreacting and paranoid. But I did exactly the same thing, not too much for McCain because a lot is right in front of me about him, but for Palin. I wanted to be prepared for the onslaught and find out everything I could so I can be informed. I wasn't one of the ones who "had never heard of her." And it was all because of FR.
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