I have this other blog somewhere out there on the Internet and it was to be my refuge of anonymity where I could write whatever and not worry about who was reading what. I don't like to open up. I don't know why. Exposing myself to people I know seems dangerous. What would people think if they saw into me? Let's not go there please. That's why what I write always feels restrained. I can't write that. What would my friends think? I couldn't dare to let the people around me to actually see inside me.
I don't care what strangers think. That's why I started on blogger. I can open up to people I don't know, as long as that's what they are, and that's what they stay. When they transcend that, become, and I never really even thought this was a possibility, become regular readers, with back and forth between us and then it just becomes another role I have to conform to. Can't whine too much, can't change their opinion of me.
The problem with that first blog, now on hiatus, was that while it was to be private internet retreat, it was also plastered with my name. Hidden in plain sight. If you google my name, my real name (Horatio Halpern turns up nothing, yet) that blog turns up tops. It screams to be found and I was in denial about that for a while until Sitemeter returned chilling news. My blog was getting regular hits from my mom's office.
I had been discovered by the last person I would ever want reading my blog. I try to maintain a casual aloofness around her, you know? No more information than is ever necessary, and that system worked, I think. But now she has picked up my virtual diary and is rifling through it. There is nothing truly incriminating on there - my brutal self-censor took control months ago, but the truth is she has access to information I would not have willfully handed over to her.
Yes, a chilling lesson on the perils of privacy on the internet. This blog is how I correct that.
The first blog was too closely tied to me, and it hindered my ability to free my mind of its clutter. I'm liking this happy refuge already. These are things that would never have shown up on blog #1. I can't show weakness, can't acknowledge to the people I know that I have problems, that sometimes I need help. That's why I'm here.
I don't know why you are here. I'm not even sure you are here. I would almost (almost) prefer that you weren't. But this is the Internet! So what can I do. Read on dear reader, my deer eater, see what drives Horatio Halpern, what scares him, what makes him laugh and what makes him angry.
We're off to a good start, I think.
Horatio
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1 comment:
I feel like I have to clarify something. When I wrote "I don't care what strangers think. That's why I started on blogger. I can open up to people I don't know" I don't think I phrased that very well or maybe I was doing some mild self-deception because it reads as incredibly false to me now.
I care deeply what strangers think of me, let's not misunderstand, what I think I meant was that strangers on the internet did not feel like real people, i.e i assume no one is reading this until i find out differently.
What went weird on that other blog is that a few people (not many) started actually reading it including one person i knew irl which made me uncomfortable, maybe inasmuch as I was conscious of the gap between my online "persona" (for lack of a better word) and who I perceived myself to be offline.
Anyway.
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