Do you also find yourselves defending communist positions because they are misunderstood by most people? Do you also find yourselves specifying the type of anarchism you refer to because most people have a conception of anarchy as simply chaotic rebellion?
Personally, I find it more effective to define myself as an anarcho-communist in order to emphasize the concept of anarchy as a structure and to highlight the concept of communism as a proletarian organizational tool.
It depends on who I’m talking to and how informed they are on politics, especially radical politics. Someone I’m already close to or friendly with, I’ll be upfront that I’m an anarchist and explain what that means to me. To just about anyone else, I’ll say I’m on the left, and if we dig into issues, I argue more along the lines of democratic socialism and social democracy. Anarchism just has too bad a rap in many people’s minds, and I’d rather get them to move left in their thinking than to try to convince them of anarchism explicitly. If they are someday solidly on the left, then we can start splitting hairs about communism vs syndicalism vs mutualism and all that jazz