Monday, October 30, 2006

Skeletons in the closet?

While I've only been blogging for less than a year, I've been a fervent reader of blogs for the last five years. There seems to be an addictive quality to reading up about the lives and daily or weekly rants of [sometimes] complete strangers.

What's interesting is the online friendships that eventuate within the blogging community. I know of instances where physical meetings with fellow bloggers have been arranged and taken place! While I have not [yet] partaken in any of these, I would imagine it would be kind of funny meeting up with people you know so much about and yet, probably so little. I guess it would be sort of like meeting up with a pen pal - do these still exist?

Some time ago, I stumbled upon Gypsy Boy's ex-girlfriend's blog. A surge of anxiety ran through my veins as I pored over the extremely articulate posts. Apart from it being a really interesting web log, the fact that Gypsy Boy once had a relationship with this woman drew me to find out more about her.

If you came across the blog of your partner's ex, would you not do the same?

PS. No, I didn't find any skeletons in the closet [...and not that I was looking!]

6 comments:

JOY said...

Hi Gypsy Girl,

I would have done the very same and checked out the blog and try to find out what kind of person my husband used to be with.

At the end of the day she wouldn't have it up there if she didn't want people to see it - that is what blogging is all about!

I like this posting - very interesting! can't wait to see if anyone else leaves a comment! Interesting.

GYPSY GIRL said...

Hi Joy. What you say is so true. Thanks for your comment!

Anonymous said...

Hello GypsyGirl - I have a little story to add here...

I tried blogging a bit (back in the day before blogs were blogs but there were LiveJournal accounts ;-)

Anyway - I didn't make it very far, but at the time there were only 20 or so New Zealand LiveJournal members and just a few in Auckland so it was easy to keep track of them all.

One was by a girl called Annette who also was going to UOA at the same time as me. She was a pretty good blogger and I read her posts pretty regularly. She also had some photos of herself up so I knew what she looked like.

One day at Uni I was walking home and I saw her - it was so exciting I did a double take and ran back to introduce myself as one of her readers.

I think she was a bit shocked and we didn't have much to say, but later than day she wrote an entry about it - it was kinda a surreal moment for me.

Well that's my little related story :)

GYPSY GIRL said...

Hi Matty,
I bet you gave her a real fright too! Would love to read that post, hee hee. It's funny when you recognise someone and know so much about them you feel like you really know them. Of course if you are a secret stalker then that makes it just slightly scary for the blogger in question!

Anonymous said...

Well - I'm not sure if I like the term 'secret stalker'. But another term that I do like (and might be appropriate here) is 'familiar stranger' you know when you're walking home from work at the same time each day/or catch a particular bus a lot you often start to recognise people you don't actually know.

I guess when you read a blog it's kind of the same :)

GYPSY GIRL said...

I agree, the term 'secret stalker' does not make a very good impression. I know exactly what you mean about 'familiar strangers' - people you see all the time on the bus/train/cafes etc but have never spoken to and don't know.

I think the term could apply to how regular readers of a blog may feel towards the blogger in question, however not quite the other way around... especially if the reader has been quietly reading without leaving comments.

At best, the blogger may know the reader's ISP, country of origin, browser, javascript version etc but at worst these may be unknown ;-)