My freshman year of college, I discovered MUSHing, specifically Elendor, the Tolkien-based MUSH. Besides being a hole for creativity (well, who needs to write anything original when you’re in a world as detailed as that one…) it was my first real exposure to an online community. And it’s there that I discovered the vast difference between real and perceived personalities in virtual space. I called it a MUSHPersona. There were people, for instance, whom I knew in real life as relatively mild-mannered bookworms, who online became sarcastic, self-important, jerks. Shyguys turn into relentless flirts. Housewives turn into vixens. And I’ve found, especially with the birth of social media and the…