Protocol
September 19, 2007 | Filed under: Great moments in narcissism, The Great Moving Caper
“When we ask advice we are usually looking for an accomplice.” ~Charles Varlet de La Grange
A few weeks before moving, I found out that people in Upstate NY had been read my blog, noted that I had occasionally enjoyed a fermented beverage and then told my mother. Causing memories of the fifth grade to come flooding back to me because telling on someone is about as grade school as it gets. Telling on someone to their mother when you are over 30 means you deserve a sharp jab to the ribs and possibly some animal crackers and a juice box. Cry baby. Though I suppose that their lives were so incredibly vapid and coma inducing that they decided to share in my life. Which for the record, is about as interesting as watching someone pick their nose.
The other night The Roommate and I were discussing sharing and how we know very little about each other. In fact I didn’t even know what she did for a living until two days ago. So we shared the superficial stuff like middle names and how when I see a bottle of wine just sitting there with wine still in it, I feel compelled to drink it. She agreed, because then we split two bottles of wine. The quandary that has presented itself is whether or not to divulge that I get great pleasure out of writing about my life on the internet. While there is possibility that she’s already aware and is waiting for me to just tell her there is also the tiny bit of me that is protective.
It’s not like this is a secret or something as I do recall the glorious year of having my full name as my URL because I thought, “who the hell would use Google?” But part of me has some odd privacy issue wherein it is perfectly acceptable to tell tales of drunken debauchery and general lack of intellect with a heap of ignorance and stupidity to several hundred people. And though I’m sure it is perfectly fine to tell The Roommate the same, there’s something about her reading about it on the internet that makes me want to remove every instance of the ‘C’ word and all of those times I mentioned vomit.
It’s some sort of odd boundary issue. The kind that plagues me when I meet someone new. How much is too much to know? It’s like any other relationship; you want to share as much as possible but there will come a point when that person will annoy to the point of making your brain come out of your ears and you’ll want so badly to write about wanting to kick that person in the crotch. But you can’t, because they read your fucking blog. And then you’re left with internalized feelings of detest and dreaming of tap dancing on that person’s head because Really? Your mother taught you to put the toilet paper on the roll like that?
BOSSY says:
Wait - so, like, you can use Google to look things up?
Kristabella says:
I’m with you. When I first started, I told EVERYONE. I only tell certain people now. And there are people I wish I didn’t tell (I’m talking to you, ex-boyfriend.) And then the people at work found it (and then subsequently fired me for it).
Tis such a fine line.
Jennie says:
I understand… I just yesterday told my dad about my blog. I didn’t offer up the URL yet, but he knows and he’s… confused, I think. But it definitely limits the number of times I can now mention him being the cause of all of my trust issues, ha.
nabbalicious says:
Ah, yes. I dearly regret the day I sent an e-mail to everyone in my family, including distant cousins, that said, “HEY EVERYONE CHECK OUT MY NEW BLOG YAAAAAY!” Now I can’t write about half the things I want to. Gah. Luckily, most of them don’t care, but I still don’t want to take that chance.
Courtney says:
Three people who are close to me know about my blog: two friends and my husband. One of the two friends has a blog. I’ve written about work–vaguely–or so I hope–and it scares me that I may be “discovered”. But then, it seems that no one really stops by, so I wonder who is reading all of my nonsense? Bbut I’m still paranoid all the same. I have an ex-friend who has a blog and found mine and I wrote some stuff about our friendship and how it soured. She was offended, but that’s where I draw the line. I didn’t write it to hurt her, we are not friends, she found it and had a hissy. Not my problem. Freedom of expression, right? Maybe I’m just a jerk.
Holly says:
I just found your blog and I’m a convert.
pass me that wine, please.
chirky says:
HA. Just wait ’til you have a MOTHER-IN-LAW.
Abigail says:
Oh man, my entire nuclear universe in California reads my blog AND IT MAKES ME CRAZY. There are a bunch of people from my growing-up-years who read it and my mom is my most frequent site visitor. Ex-boyfriends read my blog. And boys who I want to date.
Yesterday, when I was wearing camo pants and a drinking-themed long-sleeved t-shirt and ran into this guy I am thinking about dating, I wanted to do nothing but run home and blog about the humiliation. Buuut, he probably reads my blog.
How I long for anonymity.
Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah says:
You should tell her. 1) You blog under your real name and I feel confident that if she googled you (as I assume you will her) she could find it pretty easily. 2) Eventually she will see a check from BlogHer in the mailbox and wonder what it is about. 3) You area great writer. You should be proud of your blog.
Alison says:
Over the summer I found out my ex-husband reads my blog on a regular basis. I was already holding my cards pretty close to my chest, but now? The cards are in my bra, baby.
Sometimes I want to start an anonymous blog, but then I don’t feel like spending the energy on it.
JACC says:
What’s a google? Hilarious post.
I found my way here through Ed e.g. girlgoyle.
OMSH says:
My name first was plastered across the internet as a cloth diapering guru. I was full of crap then and I’m even more full of crap now.
I don’t hand out my OMSH cards to people I know here in town and I don’t even blog about them…much.
I’d be reluctant, but knowing she’ll eventually hover just long enough over your shoulder to ask, “What’s that?”
Kristin says:
Don’t do it! I said NO, suckah!
Coming from someone with her full name in her URL, I’m certain this carries a lot of weight.
Schnozz says:
My policy is, “If you don’t want it public, don’t say it in public.” Blogging is like shouting on a streetcorner. Someone you know might walk by, so watch your mouth.
It sucks, that there’s no safe place to run and bitch to strangers about how annoying your in-laws are, but I think anyone who thinks they’re safely anonymous is in a dangerous amount of denial. I’m sure I have it worse because my damn HEAD is at the top of my page (oh, the things we don’t think about when we name our blogs after a facial feature), but even without it, I’m sure I would have been discovered just based on the way I write. Ex-boyfriends, ex-friends, etc … they’ve all found me, and my real name isn’t anywhere on the damn thing. My picture may have confirmed it for them, but it didn’t bring them there in the first place. Some of them have been nice enough to e-mail me and let me know, but I’m sure others are just being all creepy and reading from afar, which is something I just try not to think about.
So, uh, I guess my advice is … don’t give yourself that problem to begin with. Inconvenient, I know. But anyone who thinks they’re anonymous, even without pictures or real names or whatever, is in a dangerous level of denial, as they’ll find out when their sister discovers that post about what a control freak she is.
Schnozz says:
Hi, I like to say “dangerous level of denial” a bunch of times. I have a fever. It’s not my fault!
tgov says:
yeah, I remember 2 incidents that make me pause in my blog-life.
1. when a certain post I wrote grabbed international attention, and made me vomit to read my stats, because an inordinate number of hits came from a company where my boyfriend’s best friend worked..
2. when a coworker from my (brand new) current firm emailed me with “is this you?” and a link to a community site I used to blog for. I said a gazillion hail mary’s that she’d found the perfectly fine public blog arena, and not the slice of my liver that I post on my personal blog. gah.
Valley Girl says:
What haters. Who DOES that?