I should have better said that your way of working on a topic follows a new approach. Your announcement to try something different here on this account was a reason for me to respond to it. When I translate my German into English, "reinventing yourself" is more like that. You see, it is indeed sometimes difficult to be linguistically correct.
I'd consider it unspectacular to reveal your identity. For my part, I appear with my real name and think it's not a form of a big deal to do, only that my readers can immediately see that I'm female and from Germany. I find this information useful in so far as the transnational conversations often lead to great misunderstandings in which, for example, political and economic circumstances differ so much from each other that you can completely misunderstand one point of view if you don't know where the other one comes from. I also identify with my gender, even if you really have to be careful not to overemphasise it. I like to know whether I am dealing with men or women, how old someone is and where they live.
My first questions in dialogue are precisely those that support me in being able to assess others.
This does not mean that I do not think that anonymity is not also attractive and that, for example, one wants to talk openly about some matters in which the identities of others - which I want to talk about - remain protected.
Also, because of anonymity I had some really funny encounters and misconceptions of a humorous nature which wouldn't have happened if I would have known gender, nationality and age.
But it is also very true what you say: the preconceived view about someone changes the feeling for the relationship. When I thought I didn't know you, you were like a blank page to me. Now that I know that we were already in touch, it has changed. But since you knew who I was, you balanced that aspect, which I highly appreciate. But it would probably have been quite exciting to keep the secret for a while, wouldn't it? ;-)
Perhaps there is after all a barrier in translation. This makes me wonder if I have not misinterpret other things you've said in the past.
I care less where someone is from, their gender, or how old they are. It's as I said about preconceived notions. I feel that if you just listen to what someone is saying and have no other information about them, your biases will be removed and you can just hear what they're saying. Of course, this in itself is a skill. Because it is easy if you're not paying attention to start projecting said biases onto people who are otherwise anonymous to you. It's easy to think, this is a forty-something man, I can tell because of how they speak. But if you can try and leave all judgements at the door, I find that communicating with someone can be much more fruitful when the words take priority over anything else.
Any excitement I might have gained through remaining anonymous would have been overshadowed by a feeling of dishonesty. Anonymity, for me, is better suited when you're talking to someone who you also do not know. When conversing with someone you do, pretending to be someone you're not, or hiding your true identity, seems entirely disloyal.
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Are you aware that well over 50% of messages between people are based on body language?
;-)
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