Saturday, July 21, 2007

"Dear God, please make me as interesting as my blog..."

(There's a danger in writing about fellow bloggers - they're likely to read your post. And then hate you for it. Unless you spare their feelings. Which isn't honest (and isn't that what a blog is?). And before you know it - you've already written for an audience. Damn!)

A few days ago, I bumped into a bunch of bloggers... different venues, but still fun. One of them happened to be the kid sister of a classmate from a lifetime ago. She claimed to have idolized me at some point. How sweet. Totally unlike today when i get hate - scraps from ex-subordinates. But that's another post (i notice lately that i'm shelving many things for later posts, and then never really getting down to it... Not good).

So anyway, back to blogger evening. It technically started at 6 in the PM, when i ended up meeting a fellow blogger for a non-alcoholic 'date' (non-alcoholic because i was heading back to work, and 'date' cuz 'meeting' sounds so... professional). He's a banker, not linked at all to the media world - a big plus. Big minus - he'd googled me and found out some details of my lurid past. Oh well, those are the breaks. Then later that evening, met up with 'kid sister', her friend, and another blogger whom i've known for a while now. I love their writing - they're witty, apparently honest and great storytellers.

But here's the thing - when one blogs, all that is true and honest and real about you is out there in the open. If you want to know anything about any blogger, just go to their page and their life's literally an open book. And then you meet them face-to-face for the first time and it's like meeting an intimate stranger. You know them, there are questions about their lives you want to ask, maybe just say that you're really thrilled about something or just that you feel their pain... and you can't. Because those intimacies are not 'yours'.... It's the oddest space to be in.

So you just watch them, intrigued and fascinated that someone so truly special is sitting within touching distance. You know that what's going on in behind that bemused expression is the real stuff - that as you're watching them, they're watching their world go slowly by, sifting through the chaff and making notes on what calls out to them.... In real life, they look like regular people - smoking, drinking, dancing, working, travelling, etc etc. But in THIS world.... Ah!

2 comments:

The One said...

Big minus? Why? I am sure his intentions were to come prepared, which actually might've been a big compliment.

Coming to the transition from clicks to flesh-and-blood. What you read in the blogs, and the opinion you form on the author is sadly based on very circumstantial evidence. For instance, you leave out the part of the person which goes out to earn the daily bread. Which is a very important part. Your banker buddy for instance, could be this loan shark at work, which is not nice. Perhaps, its best to keep these acquaintances just that, or possibly restrict them to 45-minute, non-alcoholic dates. Or else you might just end up figuring out he badly he dances. And then kapoot!!!

Searcher said...

It's a minus cuz the whole point of meeting someone new is that there is a 'new' start - but then, the fact that my very public diary leaves few details out makes it a tricky balancing act. What's annoying is that on google, there are real names and faces and professions. Boring. As for the non-dancing-loan-shark, well.. time (45 mins, i agree) will tell, i suppose.