Monday 18 October 2010

Caught In a Landslide, No Escape from Reality.

This week The TASG tackles the expansive topic of “Real Life VS. Blog Life.” I actually got this idea from a friend - a friend in “Real Life” who reads my blog. She’s one of the chosen few I’ve allowed to cross over into this world. She wanted to know more about how one might keep up with a real life while also carrying on an online identity.

While I don’t blog anonymously, I do, however, keep my blogging life to myself and only let a select few in my real life know about it. I guess I do this because I am sorta, kinda embarrassed about it. I feel like I’m SO into my blog that some people in my real life might be freaked out by my dedication. It still feels like a nerdy hobby to me, and only other bloggers understand.

What’s funny is that for nearly a year I blogged with just a few real friends reading it. I was actually afraid to join 20-Something Bloggers, the social networking site, because I was afraid of what strangers would think if they read it. I was afraid of mean internet HATERZ! But guess what? Without that site I wouldn’t have “met” Lauren and Tom and this site would not exist. I’m so fickle, I know.

Basically I love my little Quarter-Life Crisis posse and I wish I could visit each and every one of you.

That said, I have never online dated or anything, so I don’t have much experience in meeting online friends in real life. I do have one story for you that I was thinking about while I was in the shower the other day (a great thinking place, by the way).

I still have my MySpace account. I haven't updated
it in years - hence my youthful face - unhardened
by life. I was "complacent" when I last updated.
Back before Facebook I used MySpace - as so many of us did. The thing about MySpace was that anyone would and could add you - not just your friends and acquaintances. I was in Second Year at York University in North York (Toronto) and lived on campus. A guy named Chad added me to MySpace and he lived in Toronto, closer to Downtown, but he went to a Technical Institute type college near York and also had a radio show on the York Glendon (our other campus) station. He would catch the free Glendon shuttle bus at York’s main campus. After adding him to MSN Messenger he asked if I wanted to meet up with him before his shuttle bus arrived one evening. I reluctantly agreed.

I had plans for later that night to watch The O.C. with my friends, so I knew it would just be a short visit. I got a tea and waited for him in the Student Centre. We met up and he got some Taco Bell or something to eat. We talked a bit, and it turned out he was from Napanee, Ontario, originally, and he laughed about how his virtually unknown town got famous because Avril LaVigne was from there. The whole conversation was awkward though - because I didn’t want him to think it was a date. I told him that I never did things like this, you know, meet people from the internet in real life. He seemed surprised, ‘cause I guess he’d met a lot of people this way.

He had to catch his shuttle, and he said he’d play some Guster for me on his show (which I didn’t get to listen to, because I was watching The O.C.). I ran back to my residence and didn’t mention the meeting to my friends. I felt awkward and embarrassed that I’d just met someone from MySpace. After that we only casually chatted and eventually each deleted each other from our virtual lives.

Anyways, that is my one example of letting my “Real Life” collide with my “Virtual Life.” But now that I’m older, I think I’d be cool with meeting a lot of you guys for real. I feel like blogging has really opened up my life to so many wonderful people who, in many ways, are just like me, even if they live across the sea or across the border.

I’m still not ready to let all my “Real” friends know about my intense blogging hobby - but maybe eventually I’ll get there. Sometimes people ask me if I’m still writing and I usually say, “yeah, not really.” It’s so stupid because I should just say, “yes, actually I have a blog, I’ll send you the link.” But no, I don’t, I just tell them I don’t write anymore and they seem disappointed.

Anyways, I could go on and on, but I think I’ll leave it because I’m sure Tom and Lauren each have interesting takes on this topic as well. I’d love to know how each of you handle your blogging hobby etc.

But I will end this with a question to readers:

How do you separate and/or combine your “Real Life” and “Blog Life”?

See ya Wednesday Major Tom!

Don't judge me! This is a photo from 4th Year University.
I'm kissing Seth Cohen while wearing a face mask.
I'm trying to up last week's embarrassing photo.
Yes, I had an O.C. poster in my room.
Again, Don't judge me!

11 comments:

  1. I remember the days of MySpace; getting very excited over a friend request or comment. I had a sort of blog on there as well, when I was younger. Although it was terrible and entirely pointless.

    My 'real' life friends are aware I have a blog. The link is on Facebook and occasionally I'll post something up there (but only occasionally). But really, bar a few of them that blog or vlog themselves, they don't really care. Or at least that's what I thought:

    A friend of mine mentioned something from my blog yesterday and rather than thinking 'oh, he reads my blog' I thought ' SHIT. How did you have my exact same thought as me!?'. Then the truth dawned on me. And he looked at me dumbfounded as to why his friend was so, so very special and slow.

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  2. In this post, you were strumming my pain with your fingers. That's exactly how I feel, half proud and half embarrassed.

    From a dedicated reader's perspective though, your dedication is not misplaced.

    I was also obsessed with the OC. Only the first series...ahem, season, though really. Then my hangovers got worse so I could no longer watch it on Sunday mornings when it aired over here!

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  3. AND I wish I still had my MySpace. It was so ridiculously emo and completely full of crap. It's taken a great deal of dedication not to transfer the pet bat I had there to my blog.

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  4. Thanks Tom! Can't wait to see what you have to say tomorrow on this!

    And Season One of the OC was amazing television. Ryan meeting the Cohens, Oliver, Luke's gay dad, Caleb marrying Julie, Christmukkah! It was fantastic. It gradually losts it's creativity and just got plaid ridiculous. I don't regret my OC nights in Un!

    And RIP Tom's pet bat from MySpace.

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  5. And Rachel - thanks for the comments as well. I used to have my blog linked to FB, but then I realized I wanted the freedom to write about my life without running the risk of certain people finding it.

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  6. * Plain ridiculous, not plaid. Plaid is not ridiculous, plaid is awesome.

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  7. I think it's cool that you met someone from online. I only have one once (jeanette) but if distance wasn't a factor, I would have met many more.

    I'm kind of the same way. I let my blogger friends into my personal world, but my "real" friends don't know about my blogging (for the most part). Sometimes, it's my little getaway.

    MySpace is actually where I started blogging till my friend told me about blogger. Then MySpace got left in the dust. My page is still active and I check it every now and then.

    Also, I love that the title of this post is part of a Queen song. I had to play it in my head a few times haha

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  8. Mr. O - It was super awkward meeting this person. This was in 2004-05, when it was still pretty taboo. And it was MySpace. But if I ever find myself in Alabama, I'd be happy to meet up.

    Yeah - blogging is an escape from reality.

    AND...congrats on being the first person to notice and/or comment on the title. I thought I was being clever.

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  9. Blogging is SO not nerdy. :P Although I do know what you mean about not always wanting to bring it up in "real life." There have been so many times where someone asks me how my day was and I have to bite my tongue before I say something really lame like "Great! I got 2 new followers on my blog and someone left me a really cool comment on my last post!"

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  10. I know what you mean about telling people about cool blog things!

    Like, "this girl I know from Portland plays the keytar"

    "How do you know someone from Portland..."

    "I just do...it's a long story."

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  11. Hahaha!
    That's almost as good as me telling my friends about the cool letter I got in the mail from someone in Canada. Which then led to this conversation:
    "How do you know someone in Canada?"
    "I just do...it's a long story."

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