The (mis)adventures of Super-S

I’ve been meaning to address the topic of anonymity and my use of (lame?) nicknames on my blog, and when I saw that The Slack had just posted on that very topic it inspired me to finally do the same. Honestly, this probably should have been one of my very first posts, as it is central to my blogging experience.

I post as anonymously as possible because it is basically a necessity. If any of my (admittedly not very internet savvy) family members were to find out about this blog and its contents, I could be in a great deal of trouble.

Whether I like it or not (I don’t) I have made a decision to lead a sort of double life. (Ah, the Superman theme makes a little more sense now?) The nature of Egyptian culture being what it is, after living on my own for several years during college/grad school, I was given the choice to move to Egypt and be with my family, or stay where I was and basically be cast outside the family circle. While I did consider taking the latter option, I instead decided to give life with my family one more chance, and so I came here. (A decision I am thankful for every day.)

There was never any real question as to where I would live – a single young man or woman in Egypt does not live anywhere other than with his/her parents until they are married and set up a house of their own. My parents already applaud themselves for their level of open-mindedness and leniency for having allowed me and my siblings to live abroad on our own for years at a time. And to be fair, they are much more liberal than any of their siblings or extended family and most of their friends.

But the fact still remains that the choices I have made in my life – to date, to drink, to basically abandon religion, and so on - are not choices that would sit well with them at all. And while at one point in my “rebellious” youth I was dead set on letting them know exactly what I thought (and trust me, they were not very nice thoughts), particularly about their beliefs and expectations for me, the older I got the more I decided that those confessions would only serve myself because, ultimately, my parents and my family are just the sort of people who want to make sure that I’m going to be okay. As long as I can present the full okayness of my life to them, they do not need to know anything else. Telling them anything more would be just to allay my own guilt (I believe greatly in honesty, and Super-M often tells me I do not know how to lie, so you can imagine the toll my duplicitous double life sometimes takes on me) and to feed a lifelong desire to stick it to the man. Or something.

And so I entered the world of blogging, where I could speak about all those things I’m not allowed to admit freely in my everyday life.

The decision to remain anonymous, of course, affects the contents of this blog. I want to make one of those “100 things about me” lists, or at least say more about myself in the About Me section, but I’m still trying to figure out what I can say that won’t give me away too much. And, unfortunately, the lame nicknames will have to stay firmly in place, as I’m not fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have friends with names like Bob or Pete, or…I don’t know, Sally. The people in my life have names that will stand out. In fact, I was once telling a family friend something about Kal-El, and he said, “Oh yeah! I know her!” even though I hadn’t mentioned her last name or any other identifying details, because her name is so unique that there are probably only a handful of other people in this country of 70+ million who share it.

But I hope those limitations won’t take too great a toll on what I allow myself to write here. Obviously, (and I can just see Super-M nodding his head in frustrated agreement) I am rarely ever at a loss for words.