Coming Out (as a Blogger)

The sun tried its best to peer through the blinds of the rented condo. On the other side of the blinds was the ocean, but Abraham and I were in no hurry to get to it. I was lazily flipping through channels on TV. Tennis was on for the Olympics, but it's the one sport I can't stand watching. I settled on some reality TV show called Miss Advised. It's about three women who are dating advice columnists, and cameras follow them around to see if they live by the advice they give. Short answer: they don't. It's a terrible show. Don't watch it. There's a lot of whining involved.

One of the girls is a blogger.

Abraham huffed, "I don't understand why people want to read about someone's love life."

I shifted uneasily. "Oh really? Explain."

"It's just that there's too much advice in the world. Everybody's got an opinion on how to do things right. What's wrong with letting things happen naturally without over-analyzing it?"

He has a valid point. When the Singleship shuttered her blog, she wrote that she was tired of analyzing everything. She wanted a bad date to just be a bad date. She didn't want to obsess over it and end up crying on a bar stool. And when the good date does come, she wants to just enjoy it and not rehash everything. She has since removed the post, but she explained it eloquently.

I thought of the blogs I follow. Some I talk about to my real-world friends like they're real people. "I guess you just get involved in people's lives and wish them well," I said.

We had eventually made it to the beach. We lathered each other in sunscreen and splashed in the waves and did all the things that beach goers do. Cold beers in hand, we were enjoying the sitting in the beach chair portion of the trip.

"I still write in a blog," I announced.

We both have dead blogs sitting on the Internet. Abraham told me once that blogging "is so 2010."

"The dead blog?" he asked.

"No, another one."

I described the circumstances that led to me to start this blog: moving to the city for a boyfriend, only to find out he was seeing an ex within two weeks of me picking up my life for him. Then getting fired at my new job because I was upset about the boyfriend and finding myself a post-grad living at home with my mommy.

"And I was just so fucking sad. I was so sad that I needed to purge all the ugly feelings I was feeling inside. I guess the reason I put it on the Internet as opposed to a diary is that I just wanted to know if I was normal, it if was normal to be that sad.

"It's all anonymous," I continued. "I wrote anonymously so I could be uncensored in how pathetic I felt. But I've kept it throughout the years."

"How often do you write in it?" he asked.

"About twice a week."

"Do you write about me?"

"I have."

"Do you complain about me in your blog?" he asked, worried.

I was taken aback. I grabbed his wrist. "There's nothing to complain about."

"Who knows about it?"

"Nobody. Not even my parents. I think they would be proud if they knew about it. They think I've wasted my writing ability."

"Does Harvey know about it?"

"She knows one exists, but she doesn't have access to it."

"South Carolina Bestie?"

"Ah! She knows about it and reads it. We met through the blog. We probably emailed for five years before meeting... Do you know when I describe people to you as my pen pals? They are all people I met through the blog."

"What's my name on the blog?"

"I'm not telling you! Right now it's my private place to write about my feelings. Maybe I'll share it with you in the future, but I'm not ready yet. I've kept the blog for so long that a lot of my past is on it." Read: Put a ring on my finger, let me delete a few posts and then you can have at it.

"Do you have a stat counter on your blog? I have one that still emails me weekly updates on my dead blog. It still gets a random visitor. And I thought only my family read it."

I squirmed again. I knew the answer would make him more curious than I wanted him to be. "I do."

"How many people read your blog?"

"Erm, about 1,000 people a day."

"WHAT?!"

I shrugged. If I didn't make the blog a big deal, he wouldn't either.

"Now I want to read it. Did you tell people I'm 6'2" and 175 pounds?"

"I don't have any identifying features on it to keep it anonymous."

"That will keep it anonymous! They won't know I'm not!"

"Okay, you can be 6'2" and 175 pounds."

He's 6'2" and 175 pounds.

"Did you tell the story of when you threw up all over my bathroom?"

"I did!"

This answer satisfied him for some reason.

"Can people comment on your blog?"

"They can, but I turned off anonymous comments. You have to have an account. Like you were saying earlier, everyone has an opinion and advice to give. It was starting to confuse me."

"What were they saying?"

"For starters, they said that we would never work because you're Jewish and I'm not. More than one person accused me of writing fiction and that my life was not my life." I left out the part where everyone went into a tizzy because they were convinced I was in a secret sex relationship.

He snorted.

The conversation petered out. I felt like I was being dishonest with him by having the blog (and the email and the Twitter accounts) without him knowing. He's the first person about whom I've felt that way. I didn't feel dishonest with the others.

There were two things I wanted to emphasize when I told Abraham that I had an anonymous blog: it wasn't a big deal, and it was private. I think I accomplished both. And of course, because Abraham is Abraham, he didn't care. He'll respect my privacy until I'm ready. Whenever that will be.