Throughout most of our lives we exist solely as numbers and nicknames.
We start and live our entire lives with a social security number. People call us Peanut, Pumpkin, Dumplin’, or some other nickname and we begin the long journey through life.
As we grow and adapt to the society around us, we are known by more numbers. These numbers link all of our information in one way or another. Our banks accounts, credit scores, grade point averages, and even our wholesale membership club cards are all linked to our social security numbers.
In this day and age with the Internet we develop an online presence and we choose our own nicknames and usernames to portray ourselves as we want to be seen by the world. Numbers and nicknames become the norm, and we live our lives as monikers and avatars.
Many people try to keep their online world separate from their real lives, but it seldom works. Whether you meet someone online or real life, you are human. You are bound to develop a relationship with other humans, whether you want to or not. We develop online friendships and we get to know each other. True, we may try to believe we are just numbers and nicknames to each other, but we all know there is a human behind that avatar, and we we feel. We feel because we’re supposed to. We’re human.