Living Online

There something to be said for not having a personal website, or blog, or facebook, or myspace or even email. Being connected and available to the world is great is some ways but it also has its drawbacks. Recent incidences have made me think about my “connections”, if I should keep them all and how I use them.

Starting a pseudo anonymous website is a bit of a fallacy really. Nothing is truly anonymous. It doesn’t take much snooping around this site to figure out who I am (if you know me). I have known that all along, especially since The Lady likes to point it out to me about once a week.

I created this site for a few close friends back home back in the fall when encouraged by SnH to share my stories. So I did and I sent out the web address to about a dozen people, who then sent it out to a few people or linked it to their site, and so on and so forth my thoughts spread like a disease across the internet. As time wore on I thought about actually telling more people that I know about the site but thought – and still think – no, I don’t want everyone to have total access to my selective private thoughts. Other times over the past ten months I have been informed that different people I know are reading this site and I have then thought - and still do – about deleting the entire blog, or making it an invite only site for my friends to keep up with my high jinx. Ego often got (and still gets) in the way of that thought. Friends and friends of friends would report back that they liked both the writing style and the stories being told. How could I stop? People were enjoying my writing and my stories and I was enjoying writing.

But it doesn’t end with this site, my facebook connection obsession needs to be examined as well. It is a piece of my life that makes me feel a little like a stalker and like I am being stalked. While it is true that the SSM and I never would have begun chatting, then poking, then messengering, and ultimately dating if I wasn’t on facebook, creepying around his page and reading who he is chatting and flirting with without proper context isn’t fair or healthy. Things are fine when we are together and having a conversation about other girls/boys, flirting and other such things, because there is context and we can discuss things. Reading his (and other peoples) status updates, wall posts, super pokes or notes can leave me with strange relationship questions that I don’t ask because they have no real context in life and it makes trouble where there is none. I equate it to snooping through his drawers or computer files, which is really unhealthy, unwise and an extreme invasion of privacy. If there is something I want to know, I should just ask.

The other side of that coin is being found. Over the past few weeks I have been found and contacted by people that I never thought I would see again and others that I never wanted to see again. Six months ago none of these people would have any idea how to find me because there was no easy search for me like there is today. Now I have to deal with people I shut out of my life a long time ago. Sure I can decline, block and ignore but is still opens little doors and windows in my mind that I closed off.

Ultimately I don’t think I will leave facebook or delete my blog today but consider this your warning readers. Someday soon this single girl may just vanish in the night.


The Single Girl