Is MN an anonymous site

I've never met up with anyone. Plenty haven't.

But some have and you can't dictate that people can't become friends in real life just because you wouldn't like it.

Of course it's going to happen with some people.

Just because a tiny number might know each other, it doesn’t mean it’s not predominantly anonymous. I remember when there used to be meet ups, but it was a much, much smaller community then.

You sound paranoid OP, so maybe a forum is not for you.

I've been picked on for my opinions in the past so I suspected that there was a message chain or something that I wasn't part of

I was never unkind or bigoted, just opinionsted and gossip orientated 🤭

Just change your username and start again xx

Wow.

You need to sort yourself out OP. It’s not right to make the death of a mumsnetter all about your feelings.

And I'm sorry if you think it's mean that I'm telling you you're being weird about this.

It's not meant to be mean or harsh. It's just that really, you have nothing at all to be freaked out about.

Why are you not equal? If some people choose to take things off the boards, how does that affect you?

How are you not equal to me?

I feel feel absolutely dreadful now.
I had no idea that posters on here knew each other's identity

You're being ridiculous. A tiny number of people know each other. The other tens of thousands of us dont know anyone.

Honestly get a grip

If youre so paranoid delete your account and leave

Yeah. When the sex board was put in active we got grossed out and the thread was closed and PMing was discouraged. I don't know if it's picked up again.

Why do you think there's so many men on here now.

I am having quite a dejavu here.

No. Most posters really don't know each other

I do not know if any of my friends are on here. I name change on a regular basis so I cant be traced by anyone I do know.
I mean there may well be folks who meet up. Fair play. No problem with that.
I choose to be anonymous but others can choose different

Look. You're being really weird about this.

Back in the day, many years ago, MN was a lot smaller and many people knew each other. There were meet ups and parties.

Now there are millions of users.

Some of those - a very small demographic - either 'met' here and then decided to meet IRL, or already knew each other before joining.

It's quite normal for some users of a forum to eventually decide to meet up if it turns out to be feasible.

You didn't 'intrude on a friendship group' as you put it on the other thread. You're one of millions of users, most of which have no clue who anyone else is.

You're no more an outsider than you were two hours ago.

You totally misunderstood what was said on that thread.

Many years ago the site was much much smaller so friendship groups developed. We use to send Christmas presents to other people and yes there were meet ups. I’m talking over 15 years ago.

It’s a very different place now. Chill yer beans. You aren’t being left out by the mean girls.

@PolyVagalNerve It was on site stuff earlier. A woman asking about the MN account of her bereaved friend who she’d met through a MN interest and this one hijacked the thread going on about how dare they have a friendship outside of MN and how hurt she was. To someone deep in bereavement.

You're anonymous if you want to be - and obviously don't give out very identifying information about yourself - but other people prefer not to be.

They might join at the same time as friends; or strike up friendships on MN and then mutually use private messaging to become friends (although you can always ignore or reply to a PM without giving any info that you don't want to).

Even people who do have friends on MN are anonymous to the vast majority of other people on MN.

This

waves to @catin8oot5

we had some excellent noisey london nights

Are you joking? Hundreds of thousands of people use this site. Of course they’re not all friends!

If a few people from a particular thread decide to meet up, that’s up to them. It certainly doesn’t mean those people have, either individually, or collectively, any greater influence on a random thread.

Many, many people on MN are keen enough on maintaining their anonymity to name change all the time. I enjoy the general chat here but have no interest in becoming part of any clique, even on threads I’ve been part of for years.

Seriously, find what you’re interested in and post, or just read threads if you prefer. I can absolutely assure you MN isn’t one vast homogenous group of best friends.

MN doesn’t organise meet ups.

Sometimes people have a reason to meet up- because they are passing on an item
or something like that.

I have a neighbour I know uses it, but no idea what her name is here.

So if there are a million people on here, maybe a hundred of them tops have met up deliberately in any given year.

Please tell us more!

It used to be so back in the early days. No MN Christmas parties or meeting for prob nearly 20 years I reckon.

The site was small and we were wet behind the ears about keeping ourselves safe in Internet interactions. Haircurlingly awful in fact.

Mumsnetters are doing sex talk by PM 😮

Some of the political threads can be a bit bullying if you are not one of them but avoid all of those and it's fine