TL;DR: My friend accidentally saw my first and last name when I added him on Xbox. And he was afraid to tell me. Neither of us are comfortable sharing personal details. And this situation is a bit awkward. And it caught me off guard.
Me and my friend are both 15, male.
We’ve known each other for over 2 years now. He’s a great guy. And he was there for me during a crappy time of my life. About a year ago, I added him on Xbox. And it displayed my real name to him because we friends (I had this disabled. But it was reenabled somehow). He didn’t tell me for about a year. I asked him why, and he said he was scared. (I understand this. As I found what I believed was his email a few months ago. And I was pretty scared to bring it up)
Neither of us are with sharing personal details. And this is kind of awkward. I haven’t confirmed nor denied it being my real name. And I told him I’d get back to him tomorrow (as I needed to think, and it was getting late for him). He’s a great friend. But this is just a bit awkward.
What would be the best way to handle this? I feel like I should just tell him the truth and that it is my name. I’m not mad. It wasn’t even his fault. I’m just not sure what I should do. I thought about lying. But at this point, I doubt he’d even believe it. And lying in the past only made something worse for me.
How do I handle this? I’m really comfortable with sharing personal details. But I’m not going to end our friendship. What would be the best, most mature way to handle this situation?
2 comments
I think the best thing to do is to be honest and open about it. Explain that you’re not comfortable sharing personal details, but that your real name is what was shown. If he’s a true friend, he’ll understand and respect your boundaries.
Just say “yeah that’s my name but call me (gamertag) still please”. It’s really not a big deal. I have a few online friends that know my real full name, and I know theirs (Had to mail one of them a laptop when theirs broke and they couldn’t get it fixed). I still just call him by his gamertag and the same for me. If he wants to call you Adam or something eventually, it will just mean your friendship has progressed to that point but you can always just keep going by your gamertag. I promise your making a bigger deal of this than it needs to be, it’s common to eventually learn someone’s name if your friends long enough. Obviously you know this guy is actually a 15 yr old and your friend, and not some 45yr old balding man trying to groom you, so there’s a point where some level of trust is alright with any friendship.
Even when I was in my teens (15 years ago lol), eventually you’d become good friends with someone and you’d learn their actual name. It wasn’t a big deal, it was just important to make sure they aren’t a creeper so you wouldn’t start giving anything out right away.