Are Bloggers Like Me Crazy?

Image credit: Photo by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

"I hate that you don't have a blog," said a woman about to undergo heart surgery, as she gazed sincerely up at her boyfriend, "I hate that I don't know what you're thinking."

Mark and I burst into raucous laughter and had to pause the episode of House that we were watching to wipe away our tears of glee and catch our breath.  Seriously?  "I hate that you don't have a blog?" Really?  Yep.  That's what we personal (and dare I say it, female?) bloggers are all supposed to be like.  So divorced from real life connections, so caught up in deluding ourselves about these supposed "friendships" we have online, so obsessed with our hit count, so eager for an audience, so narcissistic, that we can't even talk to our partners or parent our children, at least not unless there's a screen between us.

The comments on the recent Motherlode post on "mommy blogging" back up this perception. There are lots of women there talking about the community and connections they've made and about the therapeutic release of writing.  And there are plenty of others saying those connections aren't real and that the children of these deluded, self-obsessed women are being sorely neglected.

And it makes me wonder, why do people think bloggers and other social networkers are so crazy and scary and dangerous and delusional?  Why is an online presence portrayed as something that precludes, rather than enhances or supplements, other relationships?  What makes friendships "real?"  Why do we believe that people don't know what "real" relationships look like?  Why does it matter so much how people (particularly women) spend their free time?  What makes us believe that online time is not, in fact, free time, but time that is being taken away from more important things?  For that matter, why do we always have to be doing something "important?"  What makes something "important" in the first place? (From what I read "important" is anything from things I'd count as truly important -- like spending time with loved ones -- to things I consider not at all important -- like making sure the house is tidy and/or we're making more money.)  What makes it ok for a published author of personal essays or a memoir to write in detail about herself, her life, her children, her friends, her family, but not ok for bloggers to do the same?

If there are any universal answers to those questions, I don't know them.  What I do know is that there are hundreds of people who have passed in and out of my life and have all seen a sliver of me, both online and offline: sitting next to me in a movie theater, driving me a few miles in a taxi, clicking on a link to my blog and clicking right back out again.  I know that there have been dozens to hundreds of lurkers in my life, both online and offline, who have seen bits and pieces of me (and not always the nice bits, nor for that matter, always the nasty ones): the neighbors who (assuredly) heard Mark and me arguing or laughing or having sex through the thin walls of our old apartment just the way we heard them, the folks at the next table in the restaurant listening to our conversations, the people silently reading my blog.

I know that I have hundreds of people I've talked to and spent time with each day over the years, who've shared a workplace or the classroom or the social space, both online and offline: coworkers, high school and college buddies, neighbors, moms at my kids' schools, folks in online discussion groups, blog readers, fellow bloggers.  Some I know well, have fun with and consider good friends.  Others are acquaintances whom I don't know, and still others I don't really like at all (and vice versa, I'm sure).

Then I know that there are people in my life, both online and offline, who are my soulmates: the ones who are family or like family, the ones who would know my voice (spoken or written) anywhere, the ones I call first when I have joys or sorrows to share, the ones who can come into my house and help themselves to a drink or a snack, the ones I laugh and cry and eat ice cream with, the ones who see me -- as me, all of me -- and get me, and are there for me, as I am for them.

Some of those soulmates are people like Jay (whom I've known for almost a decade now) and JW (who is my son Austen's absolute favorite person in the world to talk to long-distance (just don't tell his grandparents)); people I met online.  I didn't know what they looked like or what their voices sounded like or get to see or touch them in the flesh for years.  And some of those soulmates are people like my husband Mark or my friend Kelly; people I happened to meet "in real life."

I also know that I am fortunate enough to have six hours a day free when my kids are in school and my husband is at work.  I know that I spend the vast majority of that time on housework, household administration and errands that are unseen by the and unacknowledged by people both in and out of the blogosphere.  And I know that I take some of those six hours, as a gift to myself and a support to others, to write.  I know there are people who don't respect that or see it as useless and "a waste of time" because I either don't get paid (or don't get paid much) for that.  I also know that I love my life and the way I spend my days, and that although what I contribute to the world (whether in doing the dishes or feeding my kids or blogging) may seem small, it's important: just as, in my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey's life and work in his small town was as valuable as anything he ever could have done if he'd gone out and built those bridges and skyscrapers he dreamed of.

No doubt there are people out there who become so obsessed with some aspect of their life or group of friends that they ignore other relationships.  No doubt there are people who can't tell the difference between a genuine friendship and the high of a falsely instant connection (I'm married to someone in recovery for just that, remember?).  No doubt someone, somewhere in the world, has to conduct a poll of everyone she knows before making major life choices.  No doubt there is a mom out there somewhere who is ignoring her kids while she does something else.  But all of that is hardly new to the Internet, just as "real" friends in my life haven't been confined strictly to people happen to have met in person.

And that's why Mark and I laughed as we listened to that fictional blogger on House.  We laughed knowing that I blog (about intimate details of our lives) and he doesn't.  We laughed knowing that we were snuggling on the sofa watching House after talking for over two hours -- about everything from mundane topics, like scheduling the kids' doctors appointments, to quite serious matters about our marriage -- during which I never once wistfully opined that it would go better with a keyboard in hand.  We laughed because Mark knows me better than anyone, online or off.  And we laughed because we both knew exactly what bits and pieces of those few hours spent talking and watching TV would go on the blog and what never would.