Ok...I'm a bit on the pissed off side of things today.
I've been chatting happily away with a dude. We even morphed onto the phone conversations and all seemed well on that front...UNTIL today!
Today he asked me what I do for fun. I told him I am a sometimes writer, part time massage practitioner and an avid camper, hiker, culture vulture and all the multitude of things that make up my idea of a good time.
He glommed on to the writing. "What have you written?" he asks. I tell him about my poems, my short erotic stories and that I write a lot about dating and stuff like that. I do NOT tell him I have a blog and I do NOT tell him I've begun getting some of my writing ready to submit for publication etc. He asks to read something I've written.
Ok...he's intrigued and I'm flattered. I scoured the The Single Files and sent him THIS one. I don't know why I chose it other than I think it's pretty funny and probably more so because it's accurate. I made sure to copy and paste it to a word document so he had no idea it came from a blog etc.
Well...what do you think happens next? He PHREAKS OUT that's what! He's deeply astounded that I could write about someone's private life like that. That "Chris" never knew I would write about him or his "issues"that he shared with me and that it was wrong of me to write about it without his knowledge.
So he pulls the plug. Can't continue ANY type of contact with me for fear that I might write about it. Even writing in my JOURNAL was too much for him...what if someone should read it??? Since when did writing about MY life become all about him? Somewhere between my article and his ego I would suspect. Clearly this guy's ego is WAYYY bigger than mine! And we all know that I like to be the Alpha Ego.
I want to be very clear here with this point. I did not tell him I write a blog or anywhere on the internet for the general public to see. All I told him was that I write for a hobby and that I keep a journal. I told him one day I'd like to have some stuff published in a local publication here...but at no time did I ever mention that anything might be seen by other people's eyes.
Some of you have commented that it is unfair of me to tell someone I write a blog and then ask/expect them not to read it. I have to grudgingly admit that you are right and that was very poor form on my part. However. To be clear...Darius was sneaky and underhanded about finding my blog (getting the link from staring over my shoulder while I checked my emails -all your comments go to my hotmail account and it has the link to my blog in the title of the email) so in his case I feel totally justified in being annoyed at him for reading my blog.
For this guy however...it is unfair of him to ask me to censor myself. I could no more NOT write about my life than I could stop breathing. What you; my lovely readers, do not know, is that I do have a journal (a la Doogie Howser it is a series of word documents) and there is SOOOOO much more in my journal than I disclose on here. More details, more events...and of course not just about dating or my love life...my journal has everything from my frustrations at work to my sometime difficult relationship with my mother to my hopes and dreams for the future in it.
So my choices are these:
1) List off my hobbies but omit my #1 passion of writing - which hardly seems to be being true to myself.
2) Tell them that I write, the topics etc, but never reveal I have a blog
3)Tell them I write, never expand on it further than that statement and certainly never share any of my writing.
Bollicks!
The only one I can conceive of doing is option #2. I can tell people that I write, but never admit the blog or that they could somehow be fodder for my writing.
And I don't expect everyone to love my blog...especially as most people I know don't know about it....but it's more about respecting my need/desire to write.
BESIDES all of that. I DID tell this guy that a lot of my writing is FICTION! I just *happened* to give him a true life story.
Bahhhh!
Maybe I should start out ALL my conversations with the following statement:
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say and/or do may be used against you in a blog.
Bollicks!
6 comments:
Always be true to yourself, even if the tranquilized meathead is really cute. I think you already know that, though.
and you spelled bollocks wrong ;-)
winter
hee hee - "glommed"
Told you already Kwerkie - stay away from tranquilized meatheads - (lol @ Anon)
Love the Miranda caution. I am gonna nick it. "You have the right to an attorney. You have the right to shut the fuck up. Heh. You have the right to kiss my ass. Heh heh. You had the right to remain unmolested and anonymous, but now you're gonna be famous. Shitbag." Heh. Respect mah authoritah.
>"I do NOT tell him I have a blog and I do NOT tell him I've begun getting some of my writing ready to submit for publication etc."
Heh...good thing you put that disclaimer in there, Kwerk, or I was going to give you hell. =) The Chumpton™ in this latest exciting episode has got some serious privacy issues if even a journal entry bothers him. I mean, come on, people have been doing that for ages. And just what in the Blue Hell was he so worried you'd write about? Perhaps a self-esteem problem as well, if he figured it would automatically be a negative story.
I haven't as yet had a chance to go back over your archived stories (sorry, Roo!) so this was my first glance at the 'Chris' phenomenon. *shudder* I thought it was a pretty funny story...I can just picture you leaping into the bushes and peering out, waiting for him to drive off. LOL.
Word of advice to all the really strange/weird/funked up people of the world - if you're SO dysfunctional that the story of a date with you could be the basis of a "Seinfeld" or "Sex and the City" episode, then at the very least you'd best be prepared to get your ass 'blogged'. ;)
- Pedro
Better that you find out now, right? : )
I have been told that the guy my roomie and her boyfriend want to set me up with has already *checked out my blog*
"Is that ok?"
Um....
Yeah, sure. YIKES!
Well, it is amazing how some people react to the things you tell them - you just never know what the severity of the reaction might be.
I think he has a right to want to keep the details of his private life off of the internet (or at least have the choice). Should he be upset that you write about it in a "journal"? No, of course not, journals are meant to be private and people assume they are kept that way.
Now imagine for a moment that he didn't have a problem with you writing about the "details" in your private journal, but later found out that by "journal" you meant blog - a public forum for all to read. Well, I think he might be justified in being upset, especially if he had been misled. But this is all hypothetical.
If you recall, Kwerkie, when you blogged about me I asked you to change my name and those people associated with our exploits. This I think is a bare minimum of privacy that you should afford people (and by the sounds of the names on here you have continued this practice)...
Anyway, I think it is important that you are upfront with somebody if you are going to blog about them - at least they know. I do think it somewhat Macavallian to say you are writing about them in your private journal when you really mean public forum.
But then that's me, I like to tell the truth...sometimes to unexpected consequences.
Giermo xoxo
I think it's ironic that freaking out about being written about is what got him written about... Whereas if it had been just a normal* date then it wouldn't have been blog-worthy.
* the use of the word normal does not mean that I condone the belief that any interactions between members of the opposite sex are not any of the following: weird, nerve-wracking, confusing, bizarre, circus-like or fantastical to say the least.
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