Who is JLS?

Parents send their newly adult children off to college, to live in the dorms, with a sense of security. They expect that, while the children will undoubtedly face new experiences and challenges, they will remain safe, protected by the college. When I first went to college, I lived in the dorms and spent lots of time in the computer labs working on homework. That was when I first discovered chat-rooms.

I loved the chat rooms. I could be a person I wouldn't normally be, if you met me in person. I was flirty, vivacious, funny, outgoing, and adventurous. I thought that the persona I created within the chat rooms would stay there. I could experience that person for a few hours, then logoff and retreat back into the comfortable shell of shyness that I'd lived in for the previous 18 years. I was mistaken. I had developed a relationship with another student through the chat rooms. A student who was much more street savvy than I, and who trolled the rooms looking for young, naive girls who would give up too much information and turn that into a RL encounter where the young naive girl would give up too much of herself. I don't remember now whether I gave the information or whether the chatrooms themselves, being a part of the school network, gave identifying information about the users. Either way, the anonymity I thought existed, didn't.

A guy I'd been chatting with tracked me down. He found my phone number, my dorm room, and my class schedule. Fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones. When I stopped using the chatrooms, answering the phone, walking alone, and I alerted my friends about the guy, he eventually stopped coming by and stopped calling.

Since that time, I became more cautious about allowing personal information to be public. My number is unlisted. My profiles on online sites are private. I select which Facebook friends can see information and pictures. And I use a pseudonym on blogs and message boards.

JLS stands for Jopplynn Scott. This is a name I created some years ago. It is unique, pays tribute to my favorite composer, and is enough of a "real name" to be accepted by websites that require a real name. It began simply as a name that would work for any website; I didn't have to come up with several different usernames and try to remember which name went with which website. Jopplynn has become more than an online name, though. She has come to life as a person I wish I could be in real life. She is courageous, adventurous, unafraid to speak her mind. She is confident; knows who she is and knows what and whom she wants.

Jopplynn grows each time I write. I think she is a much better writer than I. She began just as a comment here, or a message board participant there. But as I restarted my schooling, and began having to do more and more writing, I found I let her out of cyberspace to put her imprint on the things I write. Over the last year or so, I have found her showing up more in my daily life as well. So it makes me wonder, is Jopplynn a character I've created and am "living" more? Or is Jopplynn a part of me that I've been too afraid to show? This is an important question. Jopplynn and I have a couple of characteristics that are very different. If those characteristics of hers are just a piece of my imagination, it could be disastrous to let them infiltrate my real life. However, if she is really a piece of who I truly am, it could be disastrous to keep them hidden.