Several years ago, I started using ‘Xopher’ as my online handle, and I had a number of reasons for doing this. It was different, it was shorter than my real name that often didn’t even fit in forms I have to fill out, and it started with a freakin’ ‘X’! How cool is that?
Another advantage that ‘Xopher’ had was that nobody ever shortened it to ‘Chris’. I’ve been called ‘X’, ‘zofer’, ‘ex-sofer’, but people who knew me as Xopher never called me Chris, and I really like that. I have old friends who call me Chris, and I’m ok with that. However, one of my pet peeves is to introduce myself to someone as Christopher only to have them call me Chris minutes later. When I introduced myself, I pronounced those other syllables for a reason – please don’t tell me I wasted my breath.
Sadly, a big reason why I really liked it, was that removed ‘Christ’ from my name, and I really liked the symbolism of that. It seemed to get under the skin of some religious Christians that I knew, which was just fine with me, because I had a lot to say about the evils of Christianity. The ironic thing about all that, is that the people who first took ‘Christ’ out of ‘Christmas’ where the very pious Christians, because they didn’t want to take the Lord’s name in vain. This is where ‘Xmas’ comes from. Not from the War-on-Christmas secularists like FOX news would have you believe, but by pious Christians. It was another way for me to rub their noses in it.
To top it off, and ratchet up the aggression even more, I used a photo of me with a mohawk to show that I meant business. There was no mistaking it, Xopher was a badass, in-your-face dude who didn’t give a shit about how you felt about his opinions.
While, I actually liked having that haircut, mostly just to watch how people around me treated me very differently, I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s corrosive, overly negative and it repulses people rather than bring them together. Also, I’ve been an adult for a long time now, and it’s about time for me to take the image that I project to others more seriously. I want to make a positive impact to society and to the people around me, and Xopher just doesn’t do that. I also think that people who use a pseudonym have a tendency to behave differently than when they’re using their real name. I say a bit more about that on the About page.
From now on though, Xopher is no more. My name is Christopher.