My friend John has a thoughtful entry on his blog about why people blog and how hard it is to blog about really personal stuff.
I know that is one of the attractions of personal blogs. I just setup some blogs for my family and my mother had some very personal entries that I really enjoyed reading. I felt like I learned things about my mother I didn’t know before. It’s nice to know she’s a real person and not just my mom. 
But I also agree with what John was writing about. There a lot of things I’ve felt like writing about here but often they are too close or there are people involved that I don’t want to read what I would write. Not that it would be anything bad about them. Let’s say I meet a new woman though. If I write all about what I think of her, what my plans are or asking for advice or just writing what I feel it seems like she would most likely read it and the effect would be negative.
I’ll give you an example. There was a woman I met in February at an international party. She was about my age, she came across as smart and confident, she was extremely attractive, she had some connection to my industry so we had quite a lot to talk about at right off the bat and she seemed interested in me which is pretty much a requirement for me.
So, I attempted to get to know her better asking her out etc. It was a huge struggle. I would e-mail her something along the lines of “I’d really like to see you again. How about we go out to dinner next Friday?” and I would not get a reply. A week or more would pass and I would just assume she was not interested but then 7 to 10 days later I’d get a reply. “Sorry I took so long to reply. How about a casual dinner near my work next week?” or something along those lines.
I’d think to myself, hmmm, well, I guess maybe she is interested. So we’d hook up, have a nice dinner, nice coversation, I’d feel much the same as I did when I first met her. She’s nice, she’s smart, she’s my age, she seems interested. And so I’d ask her out again and the cycle would start over. No reply for 7 to 10 days. WTF!
By mid April I had seen her only like 3 times because she would not get back to me and seriously, each time before I got her reply I just assumed she was not interested and pretty much forgot about it……… Then the reply would come.
The most promising time was my e-mail broke for 3 days when I switched ISPs. That was about 7 to 10 days after my last email to her at the time. She called me. She said her reply (late reply) had bounced and so she called instead. “Great!” I thought, if she’s actaully going to the trouble of calling she must be interested. We had a nice casual dinner again, late April and at the end of April I went to Maui for a family reunion.
I came back early in May with a few gifts for her and it took like 3 weeks again to get her to meet up and this time it was only for lunch on a weekday (meaning limited to 45 minutes so she could get back to work). For whatever reason after that lunch it felt over to me. It wasn’t fun this time. I didn’t feel like she was still interested so I gave up. I didn’t ask her out again and I have not heard from her.
Okay, I’m sure that story is interesting in and of itself and I’m sure many of you will have tons of advice but that’s not the point. The point is I kind of wanted to write about it while it was happening, not now 6 or 7 weeks later. But, I didn’t feel it was appropriate. Possibly because there was more to it.
I’m sure one piece of advice would have been that I should have been more aggressive. One excuse to that is it’s kind of hard to be aggressive if the woman won’t make any time for you. But that’s not just it, the truth is as cool as I thought she was I wasn’t sure enough about her to be aggressive and that in particular is probably what I did not want to write for her to read but something I wanted to ask about. What’s “sure enough”?
Like John, I have also thought about starting a anonymous blog somewhere just to write about that kind of stuff. But, like John, I don’t think I would put in the time. One blog is already too much time. Plus, I think one thing about having a blog, at least for me, is knowing my friends and family read it. I’m not sure I get the same thing out of an anonymous blog.
I’ve also thought about starting a separate blog to write about things I’d be embarrassed if people knew about me. Especially friends and family (and co-workers) Whether it has to do with sex, unpopular beliefs, politics, or just topics that are impossible to discuss without people jumping to conclusions.
So far I have not gotten myself to do that. Instead I keep a private journal with more *private* entries. I don’t write in it that often but sometimes I get the writing bug for something I know I can’t put on my site and currently that’s where it goes.
If you blog, where do you draw your lines?
My site used to be just photos and writings. This year I finally got up the nerve to add a journal and other more personal pages.
I find myself seriously censoring the contents of mine (it’s an embedded blurty, and consists of anecdotes and little photo essays on my travels rather than my feelings of sadness since my family died, etc…)
I don’t even have the family issue to worry about, but for some reason I feel sketchy about just typing away on how sad I suddenly became in the car because no one is there to share my latest excursion.
I guess bottom line is I feel you. I keep a livejournal for the really personal stuff, and a lot of it is locked tight.
…on getting your family to use their blogs. Very cool. Maybe I will do the same for my fam. Could be very interesting.
I think that part of the appeal of blogs to many people is the possibility that others will read what they have written, thereby lending their words at least some degree of instant credibility. “Look! I’m published! Anyone on the internet can read this!” It seems to me that a lot of people will only write thoughts down if they think that there’s some sort of tangible reason for doing so, because perhaps they haven’t yet learned the cathartic benefits of just writing for the sake of writing. For instance, many people I know will only write when they feel that they HAVE to, i.e. for a paper in school or something like that. I am a programmer by trade, and one of my peeves is people who refuse to ever write down design specs or documentation about their projects. I have a theory that maybe the reason these people won’t do this is because they’re poor writers due to lack of practice, and the reason they’re out of practice is because they view writing as a chore. Anyway, writing my thoughts and feelings down now and then has really helped me get through a lot of tough times in my life, and also to just see things more clearly in general. For instance, sometimes writing a letter to someone I’m angry at has kept me from saying things that I might have regretted by allowing me to get the emotions out and cool off without actually hurting anyone in the process. And other times, I’ve sent the nasty letters out after re-reading them and deciding that my feelings were justified. Either way, it has usually been for the best. Perhaps a lot of people who hadn’t tried journalling before in some form are learning these valuable life skills through blogging.
As an aside regarding your other comments, I think that for most personal issues – at least relationship related ones – an anonymous blog is the only safe (and tactful) way to go, if you can find the time to maintain it. You’d really have to take the time to maintain both blogs in that case, because if you stopped writing your original blog as a decoy, it would be that much more likely that someone you’re lampooning in your “no holds barred” blog will figure out who you are by piecing together the clues!
Personally, I don’t really have the time and motivation to keep up on one blog, let alone two. I’m still scribbling my complaints down with pen and paper for the most part, when the need arises. Such as when love (or the lack thereof) smacks me down. Your story about your frustrating dating experience made me smile and nod, because for the last few months, I’ve been chasing a girl who seems so, so right, but in reality, keeps on proving to be the textbook definition of WRONG.
An amusing blog idea that I had (which someone has probably already done) would be to document all your problems online, and then have a forum in which people would come up with ideas of what to do to solve them. There would then be a second stage where the readers would vote on which actions should be taken, and then the blogger would actually do whatever got the most votes…Probably not very constructive – as most people like to watch a train wreck – but it would be entertaining.
“I am a programmer by trade, and one of my peeves is people who refuse to ever write down design specs or documentation about their projects.”
I totally agree. This drives me batty. There are so many companies where the intellectual property is only in employees’ brains. I’d even be happy if there we just a few more diagrams communicated once in a while.
I love the Reality-Blog-TV show. I have no doubt that we’ll see them in a few years. Preferably, the contestants must do exactly what we do immediatly after posting the command. And the daily TV wrap up show must display all of the most extreme ranges of emotions between each commercial break.
Fixing my eternal writing errors:
I love the Reality-Blog-TV show. I have no doubt that we’ll see them in a few years (if not months). Preferably, the contestants must do exactly what we say immediatly after we post the suggestion in a blog/forum. And the daily TV wrap up show must display all of the most extreme ranges of emotions from elation to humiliation between each commercial break.
Actually, now that I have moveabletype setup for my family maybe I’ll use it for more stuff since it’s just a few clicks to setup a new blog.
My friend Danny who wrote and runs We::blog uses his system for lots of journals. For example here’s is blog on we::blog news, and here’s his blog on setting up FreeBSD. And here’s is blog on daypop.
The system that runs my main site is not as flexible so I haven’t done that but maybe now that MT running I should try it. Yes, I could use a pencil and paper but I write much much faster on a keyboard than with a pen and many of the things I want to journal are computer related.
Actually, for my personal diary I’ve been keeping my notebook pc by my bed. I don’t use the notebook for anything at the moment so it just sits there in standby, if I get the urge to write in my diary then it only takes 10 seconds to be able to start writing (if it was a mac it would only take 2 seconds!)
As for documenting code, my excuse is that people need my code now, not after I’ve documented it. Of course I try to document it enough that they can use it but most of that info gets passed on verbally. I do end up documenting stuff once there is time for it but if there is never any time then …
On the other hand, it is much easier and faster to “make it work” than to “explain how it works”. But lately I feel if I don’t have certain concepts diagrammed or steps written down then it will all blow away in the wind.
I’ve never blogged but I think the ideal solution would be that each entry would allow you to set some sort of privacy level of, say, “public”,”private” or “password protected.” That way after the fact when something is over and done you can simply change the entries from private to public. Certain entries you might want to remain private for a long time (of course seriously private stuff that you would not ever want let out, should not be put anywhere near the Internet).