And can you imagine if you were truly a public figure? It's a new social dynamic and as a degreed sociologist (heh), I'm interested to delve into it. You, for one, have much of your social world entrenched online. People you've never met know more about you than some you've met in person. We are more guarded in person because we see facial expression and our insecurities come out. . .

I love when we've gotten together in person and we've discussed things, having already bypassed the insecurity stuff online. I love debating things and discussing and listening. But I'm lucky that I am privvy to your back-story going in. Reading your blog makes me want to meet you for coffee and all that.

So anyway. It is hard for an in-person friend to confess, "by the way, I already know a WHOLE lot about you." Because then it becomes a totally different ball game. And it might mean you change the way you blog. It might mean you had something to express about THAT person, but you instead keep it to yourself.

Personally, I am not weirded out when you blog about me or when you don't. I guess I can imagine a situation where I wouldn't want you to blog about things with me, or where if you blogged about me I would want to stay anonymous, but I'm confident you know when those instances are.

I do get a little embarassed sometimes when you blog something nice about me, but it's a nice kind of embarassed. I just wouldn't want you to ever feel like you had to blog something nice about me, so I hope you never do.

If I were in your shoes I would want to know who was reading my blog, particularly if they were people I saw in my daily life. But there's also a certain point where you just have to write what you want to write and not worry too much about your audience in that precise way.

Something I wonder about--if you were dating someone, would you be comfortable with them reading your blog? Just curious, don't mean to pry.

I know what you mean - I get disturbed when I get NO comments and a BUNCH of hits, I havent reached 200 or anything, but 50 freaks me out. Say hi - say something.

But it's really just one big one-sided conversation, isn't it? I mean, I post comments that I spend time thinking out so I don't sound like a dumb-ass and the blogger doesn't necessarily acknowledge them or even read them for all I know so what's the point in commenting?

Sorry, I was up a long time this morning thinking about this, and how people who blog a lot, or likewise post on message boards, take for granted that people "know" them and then fail to make phone calls, write letters, etc. . . it cancels out one-on-one relationships because posting online is a way to catch everyone up all at once.

I miss friendships, where a person telling me the intimate details of their lives meant they trusted me, I was special to them, and that we had BUILT a relationship. Now I get screened out through caller ID and lots of excuses about being busy.

Sorry if it was not clear. . . the above was not aimed directly at you, L., but is with regard to what message boards, etc. have done to traditional relationships in general. I feel like I lost a very good friend because she thought it was ok to screen all my calls, when really I just wanted to chat to save my sanity.

You usually make me sound so damn good - blog on, sister!

Kate, you ARE so damn good.

Jenny - thanks for the astute social commentary and the clarification. Hahah. I think you are right - it IS kinda bizarre to have created this social situation in which total strangers have the potentiality to know more about me than friends do. And yet, I have so little time to actually hang out with people that maybe it's good to offer cliff's notes.

I mean, I have noticed that there are a lot of mamas who find community through livejournal and blogging, so it must be a valid exercise, right?

I do have SOME intimate details that I share in less public venues.

Jes - I need to get over to your site more and make conversation now that I'm done with my class and have a little more time.

Susan - If I were to date someone, i would think it would be ok for them to read the blog. What freaks me a bit is the potential for someone to read about my likes and dislikes and vulnerabilities and know exactly what to say to get me into a position where I can be easily manipulated. But maybe that's years of living in an abusive relationship talking.

Thankfully, I don't think I have to worry about that for the time being.