Is there a better way to refer to "Real Life" when chatting online?

Solution 1:

At the computer magazine where I work, we have a somewhat similar problem in identifying physical stores that customers can walk into, purchase physical items from, and leave again carrying the items, as opposed to online stores where transactions occur digitally. Our standard way of distinguishing between them to is to call the physical stores "brick-and-mortar stores." I wouldn't suggest saying "I've met him in the brick-and-mortar world," but you might try "I've met him in the flesh" or "I've met him in person at [name of specific location here]."

When you think about it, this situation isn't all that different from the problem of distinguishing between someone whom you know through direct physical meeting in the material world and someone whom you know strictly through pen-and-paper correspondence.

Solution 2:

During the Pirate Bay trial, when Peter Sunde was asked by the prosecution "When was the first time you met IRL?", he answered:

[...] We don't use the expression IRL. [...] We don't like that expression. We say AFK - Away From Keyboard. We think that the internet is for real.

Solution 3:

Here are some alternatives that range on the spectrum of speech registers from colloquial to stilted:

• "For reals?"
• "Did that really happen?"
• "Is that true?"
• "Did you actually meet him?"
• "Is that a fact?"
• "I question the veracity of that statement."

In each case, something is implied about the distinction between the real (true, factual, actual, veracious) and the imaginary (false, fictional, hypothetical, apocryphal) worlds.

Solution 4:

Offline works well for me, see Wikipedias article on “Online and Offline”.