I’m not entirely sure why people are either surprised or, even, angry.

It’s the thing about the Internet. It’s impossible to say if it’s real or not. And so, the Syrian lesbian blogger who turned out to be some American guy living in Scotland and the lesbian blogger who also turned out to be a man are being hounded and made a lot of people angry. But why?

Karl, posing as (or should that be ‘was posing as’?) a very ugly man wrote a blog for 2 years before finally revealing he was, in fact, nothing of the sort. People got angry. People get angry, I think, because they feel they’ve been duped. But they only have themselves to blame. With the ‘Syrian’ blogger, there’s even a woman (in Canada, I think), who thought she was having a relationship with him/her, even if they’d never actually spoken (obviously)!

In a way, I have to admire these people. To create (and, in some cases, go to great lengths to give credibility to) a persona that’s not only not you, but isn’t even your sex and doesn’t have your sexual orientation takes some skill and creativity. They need to be good writers, one would think. But is it any different than, say. JK Rowling creating a whole host of characters for her Harry Potter series?

One could argue, of course, that JK Rowling doesn’t pretend that the characters are real. And yet, in her head, at least whilst she’s writing them, they do have a sort of reality. When they become films, they take on a more substantial reality. OK, so pretending you’re someone in the real world and carrying it on is different – but only slightly. You didn’t have to believe it. In fact, why should you believe anything you read on the Internet?

There are some people who read my blog who I know and have met. Lola, for example, Pietro, a colleague, Karl, the once ugly man or Stef, a good mate are people who know I am a real person. Stef and Pietro knew me ‘before the blog’, Lola and Karl, afterwards. Then there are those (Gail, The Store Manager, Man of Roma and Ruth, the friend of a friend) who don’t actually know me at all. Well, Ruth knows I’m real, I guess. Yet, I have a friendship with these people. I don’t actually know them either. Does that invalidate the friendship? Not really. If, for example, MoR turned out to be a woman living in the USA, would that make our discussions irrelevant? No, not at all. And I trust that these people, when they blog, are telling me the truth. Would it matter if they weren’t? Again, no not really.

There is a woman with whom I am a ‘friend’ on Facebook. Solely for a game that I used to play. She has all sorts of ‘problems’ but I don’t know that it’s all real. Perhaps she is just making it up? She certainly craves attention both in the game and on Facebook. I don’t know if it’s all real or whether it’s just being said for the attention. And I don’t really mind either way.  I take the Internet for what it is.  I believe the people that I read about but I’m not really emotionally involved, I suppose.  How can I be?  I don’t know them.  I can read about things that they do, empathise with them over problems that they may have but deeper than that it’s impossible for me to go.

And, anyway, it’s not like real life didn’t throw up the odd con-man (or woman) or two?  The Internet just makes it easier and, certainly, makes changing sex very easy too (not that that hasn’t been done in real life).

So, whereas I’m not especially impressed by what the two guys have done I’m not really shocked and I’m not outraged.  It’s what you should expect unless you have proof otherwise.