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?