h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Trillian's Child says on her home page that she had forgotten about the character "Random" when she chose this nickname for herself.

I thought she had chosen it before the book came out?
*goes off to look*

The book came out a while ago (prob before h2g2). I think she said she hadn't read it at the time. But it works anyway. I'm not saying she chose it to be like that, but it's a good example anyway.

Don't forget that some people just don't want you to know. For example Feisor has never stated his/her gender and even appears with a bag over his/her head in pictures. I think it not unlikely that some researchers pretend to be male when actually female and vice-versa.

I wonder why they would want to. Probably partially just to see if they could.

Yes, and some people go around pretending to be mighty pirates or have three heads, so they probably think that saying you're a bloke when you're not is comparatively a pretty minor thing.

'My name is Guybrush and I want to be a pirate'

But how many of them expect you to believe that? Whereas being a bloke is slightly more realistic (almost 50% of the population are, y'know)

This is true, but if you're pretending to be a veloceraptor, pretending to be a male one doesn't seem that ridiculous.

I should probably have said that I liked the article instead of just leaping in moaning. Sorry.

If you got as far as the conversations bit you must have read most of it, therefore it didn't bore you to death, so I'm as happy as I need to be.

But if you're making a up a whole identity, a believeable one, that's when I think 'huh, what's wrong with this person's real life?'. Obv there might be nothing wrong with it, it just might be a bit boring (hence me not blabbering on about how my life is going).

Well, yes, I prefer people who're honest about themselves, but I wasn't debating the morality of it, just saying it probably happens.

I expect it does happen, but why?

I don't suppose anyone who's doing it will come forward to explain, or they'll be letting the out of the bag.