Who knows that you blog?

ℹ️ This post is a response to David's one Who knows that you blog?

It has always felt strange to show what I write to people I know.

Most of my readers don't know me in person, and that feels natural. But when the actual and digital worlds blend, it can be strange.

When people you know start reading you

Sometimes I mention to a friend or relative that I have a blog. It's rare, but it happens. It's even rarer for them to actually read it. That's how it should be: people should read me only if they are interested.

I'd be ashamed to expect anyone to read me when they weren't.

But it would feel off if someone I know reads my blog not out of genuine interest, but to learn things about me instead of just asking me directly.

Perhaps it's because I was stalked by a former partner. It was creepy to get questions like:

"Why did you congratulate XY on their new job on Facebook? Who are they? Do you often chat in secret?"

Or:

"In your latest blog post you wrote this and that about someone. Did you mean it about me or someone else? Whom did you think of?"

And the answer never mattered. She had already decided on the worst possible explanation and dismissed everything else as a lie.

Meeting readers in person

In university, I met about half a dozen people who followed my blog and the short stories I wrote. Most of the time, it was painfully awkward.

They already had an impression of who they thought I was. Like sort of a parasocial relationship. They approached me with enthusiasm and openness, and all I could say was "I'm glad you like it". Then I froze.

I was bullied a lot in school. Feeling that the other person behaved overly friendly toward me rang an alarm, and I shut myself off emotionally, suspecting that they wanted to manipulate me into something.

Most of the time, I must have looked cold, emotionally distant, or outright arrogant.

Boundaries

The most important thing for me is my boundaries.

Most of my family knows I blog, but the only time we talked about it was when I mentioned getting a domain name. Whether they read it or not doesn't affect our relationship, and from that, I feel my privacy is respected. My wife encourages me to blog, but she only reads a post when we talk about it.

When my former partner kept checking my online activity, she used it to control me. It was an unacceptable violation, still I felt powerless to stand up for myself.

When fellow students from the university started to behave as if we knew each other, they crossed a line. It was less of a problem, but it touched earlier pain points.

Why I keep blogging

You might ask: why do I blog if I don't like these things happening?

First, I try not to let bad experiences dictate my actions. I can’t avoid this all the time, but I do my best.

Second, I feel an internal drive to write and tell stories. I touched on this topic briefly in my post: Along the Edge.

Finally, I’ve learned a lot from the philosophy of the Python language. Instead of overstraining myself to avoid every bad thing, as I once did, I focus on living normally and learning to handle unpleasant things as they come.