Wanting to reveal my true identity to my online friends

Back in the early 2000's when I was little I witnessed children around me get bullied for the pitch of their voices and the year they were born in. Wanting to avoid this unjustified prejudice I came up with an alter ego; It started with me lying about my age but as time went on this second life of mine started getting more and more detailed. And as you do, I started making friends; these people would only know me as the person I was posing as, but now it has been a few years and I fear revealing my true identity will cause my friends to leave me, how should I go about this? How would you react?

You're too far gone 4
You're overthinking it, just take off the mask 5
Don't act, let them confront you about it 0
Come clean ASAP 2
Other (leave comment) 2
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Comments ( 9 )
  • raisinbran

    They're not real friends. If you disappeared they would forget about you after a week.

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  • SwickDinging

    You should be honest.

    However, in reality if I was in your shoes I wouldn't tell anyone a thing. I'd keep up the lie until it got too much and then I'd ditch and run.

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  • drat

    Depends what all you lied about and why (long as it wasn't to gain something then ok I guess). Might be mad depending how close we were, but from the reasons explained here, might be intrigued to know the reality, too.

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  • paramore93

    How old did you tell them you were? Unless you want to lie your entire life, just be honest. Even if you lose your friends (I hope not) at least you're free and can stop living a lie.

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  • JD777

    I guess it depends what kind of friend you were. But, I’d think they see this as their “friend” is gone and replaced by a liar who conned them for years.

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  • charli.m

    Are you 1992 guy?

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    • HotPlesiosaur

      No, I've only lurked before today

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      • charli.m

        Ok.

        Well...if you decide to be honest, you take the risk of losing these people as friends.

        It's not necessarily a given that they won't want anything further to do with you. That depends on what lies you told and the individual person. No one here can predict that.

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  • Lestat565

    If I were one of your friends I wouldn’t have anything to do with you after showing that you were fake. Why should they want to be friends with someone who lies to them. One lie makes every truth look like a lie.

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