Heh…. contrary to CW, most Internet trolls are likely trolls in real life.

The magic of being a grown-up is that you get to choose whom you socialize with. Sure, you have to talk to your coworkers sometimes, but there are rules about how obnoxious you get to be in the workplace. And chances are if you work in a white-collar professional environment, most of the people you work with are self-selected to share at least certain values with you. They may be more liberal or more conservative, but they’re probably not foaming at the mouth. And most of your coworkers, you only see within the bubble of the workplace and “professional behavior.”

In fact, even if some of your coworkers are internet trolls, it’s not the lack of online anonymity that’s keeping them from trolling you in person — it’s the chilling effect of “workplace behavior” and professionalism.

The fact is, you can meet internet trolls in real life, and they will be just as trollish in person as they are on the internet. It’s just that, when someone starts screaming at you on the street about their crazy conspiracy theories, you can walk away. Also, most of us who are over the age of 21 don’t make a point of hunting down random 14-year-olds and asking them what they think about stuff — unless we’re related to them, in which case it’s a self-selecting group. Most of us who live in city centers also probably don’t venture out to suburban malls and ask people what they think about politics or cultural issues, or vice versa.

That’s one point — trolling is often in the eye of the beholder. A conservative’s idea of trolling will be very different from a liberal’s. Ditto for divisions of age, socioeconomic status and sexual orientation.

We tend to talk to our friends, and to people we already share some basic similarities with — and if a random dude does come up to you and start explaining his theories about women, you usually back away.