Why do people online seem like they’re not even the same person you know in real life?

When you interact one-on-one with someone in real life, they will customize their expression and opinions to you, more or less. Most people don’t downright lie to your face, but some people actually do; from creating a fake backstory to just lying about liking the same music as you do. Creating an entirely new persona to fit the surroundings is narcissistic, but we all soften our hardest edges based on company… Controversially – unless we’re narcissistic. (Narcissists can go two ways: completely adapt to the situation with a fake personality, or force everyone else to dance to their tune without even trying to accommodate anyone else. Normally, people stay somewhere in the middle; they try not to pick a fight or be openly opposing others’ views, but stay truthful to who they are.)

Most people don’t want to pick a fight, therefore, they’ll avoid topics that they know you disagree with, and the stronger you express your own opinions, the more people filter theirs in order to not causing an open disagreement. People may confide less stuff with you than they do online because online, they are not directly interacting with you. Therefore, the “secrets” they share online are not real secrets, but they may be interpreted as such if shared one-on-one.

Online, people also choose their target audience, but in real life, they can’t do that. Therefore, they focus on their favorite discussion topics, rather than having to find the best mutual topic they share. It is possible, however, that a narcissist will completely change for a different online audience if they are famous enough to be invited to different shows with a different audience.

This way, the person you see online may be very different from the person you know in real life. When it comes to normal people, the online version is more accurate than the one you know, unless they’ve shared some intimate details about themselves with you specifically, that is. If they are “wilder” and more open online, it’s simply because they trust that someone online will accept them, whereas they know you don’t. They may also be looking for friends online and are thus trying to both impress the right people and put off the wrong people.  They may not want to impress you, specifically, because they don’t want to make friends with you, so you see a milder version of them in real life.

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