Stranger or friend?

Here's a thought: Is it possible to hide who we are in our writing? I already know what I think about this, but it has come up a lot in the few months I've been blogging, so I'm thinking it over. I read a lot of blogs, but my favorites are the ones in which the blogger lets her or his personality shine through. I feel like I know these people, so what would happen if we met? How would the real person be different -- or not -- from the blogger person?

I recently met a man I had become acquainted with through our blogs and email exchange. Before I met him, I wondered how our friendship would change by meeting in person and would we like each other as much and would conversation be as good, because it was conversation, after all, that started the friendship, and if we didn't have that, then what did we have? And all of this was new territory for me, as it is for many of us who blog.

Some people do a different version of this when they meet people through an online dating service, and that one seems fraught with danger to me while my situation did not, maybe because this friendship just evolved and had no agenda, whereas a dating service has  built-in expectations. I've talked with friends about how they go about choosing which profiles to respond to. One friend says her bottom line is that they have to be able to spell and have good grammar. Another says she can tell from their online name (BigBikerDik didn't make the cut). I know people who have met through an online dating service and are now in a long-term relationship with that person. But back to my original question: Is is possible to hide who we are in our writing?

No, I don't think so. My blogging friend is just as delightful in person as he is in his blog and in email. He is who he is. Period. But reading someone's writing and looking them in the eye are two different things, and maybe a really slick writer could fool a reader. Or could she? Of course, I'm talking about personal blogs, and we do take on a persona when we write, but I believe we take on personas all the time. I know for sure that the person I am when I teach in front of a classroom is a much more outgoing person than the one who stays home instead of going to a party. And just because I can do that -- stand in front of a group of people and talk -- does not mean I'm an extrovert.

So the answer to my question would come from two areas: the ability of the writer to protect or reveal a real self and the astuteness of the reader. When I read blogs, I'm curious about the person doing the writing. I love the blogs that reveal a person who asks good questions, seeks to know more, exposes something personal -- not the big secrets or the shameful stories but the day-to-day discoveries we make about ourselves, fear and joy comingling and sometimes making us laugh at ourselves.

We never know when we meet someone new -- in a blog or in person -- what (if anything) that person will come to mean to us or how long we'll be friends, and it doesn't matter. What matters to me is being so fully engaged in my life that I'm willing to take the risk. We can discern and make choices based on our discernment. Yes, this one I want to know better, or no, this one is not someone I want to draw into my life.

I chose one day to meet my blogger friend, make eye contact, read him in person and allow myself to be read. He's not an ax murderer. He's a good person, which is exactly what I thought of him when I met him on his blog. He already enriches my life, and if I were never to see or hear from him again, he has still enriched my life. Every encounter between two people matters, usually in ways we will never know. I am touched by how vulnerable we all are and how lovely it would be to let someone else, even a stranger, see that vulnerability.

Comments

[Karen Wallace]

Hello Verna,
This is my first visit here, thanks to Rosa. And I'm really enjoying reading your blog (must come back later when I have more time...)

I have found, in my experience of blogging, that I cannot write if I'm not being me. For me, it is impossible to hide who I am when I write. I hate the posts I draft where I am not being me, and delete them unpublished...

Terrific food for thought - thanks.

[dorisday]

amen...