People who I only really know through various online services and who send me friend requests on Facebook should probably include a message with their nicknames, because I do tend to keep my friends list pared down to just my actual friends. So I end up saying stuff like:
“A friend request from [Real Name]? Who the hell is [Real Name]? Hey Sweetheart!? Do we know a [Real name]? No? .. Fuck. Let’s check their interests … Monty Python, Science Fiction … that’s probably someone I know somehow … what else is there … World of Warcraft .. 70 Mage on Proudmoore .. Oh! It’s Elfburger! Why didn’t he just say he was Elfburger in the first place?”
July 7, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I always say ‘it’s caycos’ if it’s someone who’s unlikely to know my real name 🙂 which is quite a few people actually!
July 7, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Wait, I don’t have a nickname (at least not one I use: God knows what people call me when I’m not around)
July 7, 2008 at 10:20 pm
“Aunty Susan”. As in ‘Okay, this is Bastard Gin. First thing you need to know, don’t play this with your Aunty Susan’.
Russell Brown says ‘anyone who’s anyone knows who Ghet is’, which while I find it terrifying, means I can call myself that in good conscience.
July 7, 2008 at 8:49 pm
The advantage of using your real name as your nick. I hope that most people could figure out that “Kim Eros” is Kimeros 🙂
July 7, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I have the problem that my girfriend thinks calling me my real name is “weird” and “I just don’t think of you like that”.
July 7, 2008 at 11:28 pm
I have a friend who calls her husband by a nickname based on the surname that they now both share which sounds deeply weird to someone who has only known them as a couple.
July 8, 2008 at 12:18 am
I use “JSR” in public because anything else would confuse the listener 😀
In my head he’s sort of a nebulous him-who-lives-here-what-I-love entity that doesn’t really have a name.
July 8, 2008 at 12:49 am
I remember being mocked for still calling JSR ‘hon’ some months after we had stopped going out but it was far, far easier than figuring out the alias du jour and adjusting my habits accordingly.
July 8, 2008 at 2:45 am
I sort of have the opposite problem, in that my partner never had a useful nickname, and so has to be distinguished from all the other Karls with a possessive, or a fully subordinate clause.
July 8, 2008 at 3:31 am
Fortunately since my Uncle Jamie died Jamie has been pretty muc unique in my world.
July 8, 2008 at 2:28 am
I understand that, I would have to say I don’t think of myself by name so I don’t mind if my significant other doesn’t either, I mean I know who I mean when I think of myself.