I am an endangered species – a personal blogger
The blog. A web log. In Internet years, these things have become antiquated. When blogs were new, the concept was mostly personal. You didn’t have news entities or people making a living off of the thing, people just wrote about what they wanted and put it out there. I’d wager that most anyone doing such a thing in the early days of blogging never did this with the idea of anyone else really reading it, we just did it because we could, so why not? It was the same principle as building your own website in the 90’s. You probably had nothing of worth to really share or create, or if you did, you didn’t stick with it long enough to get that good at it, but it was something cool to do online, so why not? There’s no better reason to do anything!
Closely associated with the birth of the blog were services like Xanga and Livejournal, which turned into everyone you knew having one. This was kind of an unfortunate time for the Internet. At least with Tumblr, everyone can just post stupid
pictures and quotes, because as soon as most people (kids) start putting down words, it just gets messy. Either way, the public, digital diary — everyone was doing it. It’s something I’m no stranger to. I was effectively doing it with our websites at the time GTAMAC — which was a precursor to SwB Crew, and all early iterations of our SwB Crew websites were as much about us writing about whatever we wanted as they were putting our movies online.
Needless to say, as soon as I discovered you could write these entries without having to manually update .html files and upload them via ftp, I was convinced there was nothing more bitchin than that.
Basically, what I’m getting at is that I’ve been writing a personal blog for a long time. It is part of me. To me, it’d be weird if I didn’t have one. And to this day, I have no expectation of anyone ever reading anything I write and publicly nail to what is effectively the digital town square, but people do. People I know do. People that I write about do, and people I write about don’t. People that I will never see again have been characters in my writings, and people that I have to see everyday have been.
That’s kind of a tough line to walk. If you are reading this, then you likely have read something else I’ve put on here, so you know how personal I like to get. I don’t know why, exactly, but for some reason it is very comforting to me to bare all on here, and when it comes to myself, I try to, but I have to expose other people to do that. There have been dozens of occasions where I’ve hit that PUBLISH button on WordPress right before I’ve gone to sleep, with a moment of hesitation as I wonder to myself —
Is this too much? Is this inconsiderate to X or Y?
Of course, 112 times out of 150 I have hit that button, only to wake up the next day in a cold sweat, stomach churning like one of those cylindrical popcorn machines finding that anxiety had seeped into my body through my pores as I slept, expecting text messages, voice mails, and Facebook posts about how much person X or person Y can’t stand me now because I put them out there, almost as exposed as I put myself.
These are typical struggles that any writer, or artist, really, goes through, but in this case, anyone can do it, and anyone, especially within your social reach, can see.
This also presents a lot of issues with the expressive form of writing. I hate it, but my personal blogging has turned me into a very vague writer. So many times, I’ll wrap up an entry, be skimming it and realize to myself that I never actually said anything because I was trying to not say too much about other people. I really wish I had the convenience of just being able to pull up WordPress and type:
Today, Durrell came over because we were going to go to Charlie’s party together. He was kind of acting weird, though. I guess I picked up on it when we were watching Flight of the Conchords, season 1, and instead of facing the TV, he was sitting facing me directly, just staring. Plus he was blocking my view of the TV, bastard. Anyway, right as we were about to leave, he pinned me to the wall, pulled off a lot of latex that has been plastered to his fast and told me that he was a transexual, but that he… she?.. he was considering becoming a woman again and that he needed me right then and there to figure it out. I told him to look up, then kicked him in the nuts, but then I remembered that she didn’t have any. Then Durrell stabbed me with a fork and ran out. Just got out of the ER, no clue where Durrell went.
(I shouldn’t have to point this out, but it is the Internet, so I unfortunately do: nothing like this has ever happened to me)
You get the point. I don’t have the liberty, or at least, I don’t use the liberty to do this, almost ever. And when I do, I only focus in on about 60-70% of it and try to post it months down the road, if not longer. Sometimes I really wish that I could just drive in like that, because it would make my writing a lot better. It is easy to wonder: why not just have an anonymous blog? For one, that wouldn’t be any fun. I think I prefer figuring my way through an obstacle course instead of just forgoing the entire thing for the easy path. Also, I do get value from this because there are people who do actually read it. Sometimes I like to think that people who need to read it do, and at least have something to think about, but much much more importantly, I have always been shocked every time someone approaches me and tells me that they enjoyed my writing, or at best, that they really related to what I said. I can’t get that kind of fulfillment from an anonymous blog; not from someone I personally know. Granted, you could argue that I don’t expect anyone to read this anyway, so why should I care?
I care because it has already happened, and will continue to happen. And you know what? I really like it when it does.
In light of all of this, there are always a few general guidelines and considerations I keep in my head when I do write this stuff.
For instance:
If I include this person in this entry and they read it, how do I think they will react?
First off, I should note, I almost never explicitly mention someone. It is almost always implicit. In a lot of ways, this can be a lot riskier. It usually works like this: there is that one person who will just know that this is who they are as soon as they read the part they are implicitly mentioned — especially for heavily significant experiences I’ve had, but from there, I can usually always think of half a dozen friends I have who have enough similarities to my vagueness that they will probably wonder if it is them. From that point, who knows how many more that I’d never expect to think I could be talking about them might read and wonder. Of course, this is all predicated on if any of these people read it, but that circles back to the surprised factor.
I promise you one thing, when I am writing about significant personal events, I truly try hard to wear kid gloves without being completely bland and inexpressive, but even in my most careful, I often fail someone. Consider this, I’m the only person I know who really actively does this to the level I do. It is the uncharted territory conundrum. Any tiny mistake in indiscretion at the captain’s wheel can turn into the Titanic, because nobody else does this. Normal people either keep this stuff bottled up, or just keep it to interpersonal gossip, but we don’t really explore ourselves (I wish more of us did).
Example: Last year, I had a social train wreck that spanned several interconnected social circles and two best friends (myself being one). You bet your ass I’m gonna write about it, but I wasn’t doing it to be vindictive or angry, though it was hard for me to not be at times, but rather because I just had to, it’s what I’ve always done. There were multiple occasions where I showed up early at a social gathering in one of these groups and was immediately cornered by one or two of the friends who are part of the collateral damage and frankly accosted with the question:
WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?
And then informed how -eveeeerrryoooone- had read everything I had said and been talking about it and so on.
Was I going too far? Should I have never published it? Should I never have even written it? Could I have written it in a way that wouldn’t cause such a stir?
These are the questions that reverberate in the mental canyon, and I never figure out the answers, so until then, I just do.
In the case of this example, I’d say that my relationship with about everyone involved, except probably one person is as good or better than it has been. I grew from it, and I credit a lot of that to being able to work through it on my personal blogspace, and maybe others involved did as a result. At the least, they will likely never go through a socially stickier situation because you can’t get hairier than when one of the immediate parties involved is exposing everything to everyone.
That’s what gets me through the next day anxiety. I’ve never had anyone put me on total blast for anything I’ve personally wrote, and I think I’ve deserved it a few times. At most, I just get some honesty, and I see how I might have come incorrect, I apologize and before long everyone is better for it. I’ve never had anyone decide they hate me because of something I wrote that involved them. This alone. Is. Amazing. Seriously. I’ve been so sure that I’d rupture relationships more times than I can count, but I’ve never seen it happen as a result of me blogging about it. When it has happened, it has been as part of the events and feelings I write about, and if the writing ever damages it, it is because my reaction and handling of my emotions already did the damage. The writing is just the instant replay.
Love Is Hard, Though
I think most interpersonal connections are more manageable as long as you have a good system of questions to run through a general guideline. I think after I write this, I’ll come back in a day or two and record my general question process when I’m trying to figure out if I’m going too far or too specific or just doing it too soon. The thing about friendships, for instance, is that they rejuvenate. They’re like spiders, they might lose a leg or two, but the thing will just lay dormant for long enough until it sprouts a new one and be on its way again. Lesser relationships are different, but much simpler. For one, anyone in the sub-friend category probably will never read a personal blog of an acquaintance, professional contact, or anything similar. Second, I feel more comfortable putting a stranger or an acquaintance out there with me because it is no-stake. If somehow, it comes around that it affected that person, I’d be at no loss to begin with. Here is an example:
There is this dirty blonde headed girl at the YMCA who works out at the same time, on the same days that I do. I suspect that she goes or went to Lipscomb, because sometimes she wears a Lipscomb shirt, and she her workouts are so intense that I not only suspect that she is training for something, but also always feel like packing it up and going home because my workouts, in comparison, are a pile of horseshat (and I put myself through some pretty tough ones, occasionally). I have one of the hugest crushes on this girl, though. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to tell her that myself, on here. I don’t stare at you, or anything like that, we all know I have a problem of over-respectfulness, but good grief, I admire you. I’d love to get to know you, you seem like you could have more there to take me past that crush stage. That is key; that I’m intrigued beyond just attracted. Also, very nice butt. 😎
As opposed to:
There is one girl that I know, presently, in my life, that I legitimately like. In fact, it is at the stage where she actually knows this, and we are at least friends, but that’s all I can or care say about it.
Even if, by some insane Internet machine miracle, that girl I have a crush on from the gym found out and perfectly connected it given the specifics I was able to throw in there, I wouldn’t care. This is knowing that I’d certainly see this person in the future. In my head, at most, I still pretend like this person hardly exists beyond my periphery, lift my weights, do my box jumps, shoot my jump shots, and pedal on my exercise bike like I already do. But for the other instance, I can’t say anything because this person already matters to me, on some level, and I know people that know her, and she knows people that know me, and we have this web established. There’s too much voodoo there.
This is a low-level example. This is at its worst when you’re actually dating someone. Those times have been the only ones that I have gotten into real hairy situations with someone from anything I’ve personally written. In fact, I couldn’t even write about Kara and me in anyway because even if I meant for it to be totally neutral, or in some cases, even very nice, somehow feelings would get hurt, or something would flare up. I had to keep most of my personal blogging in those times to strictly personal things, or abstractions.
Don’t do the abstractions. Those end up worse when you’re just writing imagery and random feelings and the girl reads it and somehow thinks it is all a way to say that you hate her.
I’m no Phillippe Petit
I am still on the fence in that regard, I think there might only be losing if you have a blog like mine and are in a relationship. The only thing I can think is to continue to follow such mental guidelines about writing with as much discretion as you can afford, but also making sure that any girl that I date knows that this is just part of my life from the outset. Oh, and probably letting them read anything before you publish it. (Snap, that’s a good one that just occurred to me)
Lame summary/conclusion time. I don’t know if this is insightful at all, but I do feel like it might be a perspective that a lot of people don’t have if they don’t write on a medium like this. I guess, if anything, I just hope that anyone who might take a trip through my mind understands that I never try to do it with any sort of prerogative, I am just writing and putting myself out there, because it is just what I do, and I kind of love it. I do feel bad that it puts an unspoken pressure on all types of relationships I might have, but I don’t think it is that detrimental beyond the unspoken part. A diary is one thing, but I think that the world would be more interesting, maybe even more enriching if more people really got publicly introspective, but I understand that it isn’t a common calling, either.
If you’ve read this, you have decent odds that I’ve probably thought of you or wrote about you in some way. If you ever want to know that bad, you can always ask, and if you ever feel I go too far, you can always tell me. I’m a virtual tightrope walker, but I’m no Philippe Petit. Just know that I am conscious of these things, yet this is a challenge that actually draws me to writing in this format, and always will.