6b- The Blog Dilemma

**Spoiler Alert*** In this Blog I Blog about the strangeness of having people not only read your blog but also feel like they know you as a result. You might need context as to why I blog and how it all started, in which case you should probably refer to my blog on blogging in Blogging 1.0. I get that it feels pretty oxymoronic, a writer complaining about being read. But I never promised to make sense.  It might also feel like false modesty that really hides shallow pride, it’s not.  This deeply bothers me and it makes me feel sad for a world that has yet to find it’s own unique voice. So this isn’t for you.  It’s for them.

I blog for me.  I’m a writer, I always have been.  I love words and the way that they caress your ideas and give them eloquence. I write because writing feels good.

Here is the weird thing- these days people read my blog.  I know this because on this site I can track how many “hits” my blog gets daily, weekly, and in total.  I looked the other day by accident (I was trying to figure out how to edit a post) and found that in the few weeks that I’ve started Blogging again I have had over 100 hits- in this country and out of it.  That left me feeling weirded out.  What I have to say is not that interesting, just amusing.

I have given the aforementioned Blog-site to exactly 3 people.  Initially I only gave it to one person as an alternative to real conversation.  Like a hat tip to rules that are both necessary and hard to adhere to. I have no idea if the intended target audience has seen my words.  But even if not, at the appropriate future date I know I can be like, “Read my blog.  Catch up on what you missed.”  It will save me the time of having to rehash all of the conversation.  I’m not extensive in my Blogging, just purposeful enough to leave a trail of crumbs for later.

I used to go to poetry cafes and get on the mic. And as in this situation, out of nowhere, in the days and weeks that followed invariably some random person would approach me and tell me that that had heard my stuff at the café and compliment me- make conversation.  That felt a little less weird than seeing that people read this Blog.  But it still felt weird. The idea of people remembering me or my words to the extent that they feel like they know me feels a little dirty.

This is actually why I stopped blogging last time.  My ex-husband, the most recent not the original, had asked me if I was writing about him.  That was one of the strangest conversations I have ever had.  He hates to read.  The idea that he would go looking for my words to give context to my thoughts blew me away.  I mean we were married, probably then would have been the time to figure me out.  I didn’t understand why he would wait until we were divorced to listen to what I had to say- and to assume that it was my way of communicating about him.  I am no slacker in the area of conversation. If he wanted dialogue we could have just talked when we were legally wed. His reading my blog and applying to himself felt passive- aggressive to me, no wonder we are divorced.  He made me not want to write anymore. Fortunately I give no one the power to own my words.

I kept trying to figure out how people would even think to find my blog….  Google Circles and Drive. Blast the Internet. I guess it would be easy to say if you don’t want anyone to read your blog- don’t blog it.  But I do.  It just happens to be a very select number of people. And again I get immense satisfaction from giving birth to baby ideas in the form of words. I suppose I just need to balance that with the idea that in a world characterized by it’s lack of creativity, people will sample a beat instead of create one. I just wish if I am going to be quoted- at least use quotation marks. And I guess maybe it’s human nature for people to assume that if they know you and they like what you are doing then they own a piece of you and trademark it as their own.  But they don’t and they can’t- or at least they shouldn’t try.

I do wonder if one day, once my stifled conversations can be had, I will publish the whole book and charge people to read my words.  Maybe it will feel better then. Not so much like eavesdropping on a private conversation but more like attending a soliloquy and retelling it to your friends later.  At least then when I write I will know that the target audience paid to reorder my thoughts into their words and tell the story later. Then maybe it won’t feel so passive- aggressively dirty.

I’m not sure what my solution is to this strange but true dilemma.  I do know I’ll continue to record the stories of my life for now. At least until those stifled conversations are had.

After that, all bets are off.

-Dewb