My Blogging Myth Deflated

When I first started my BLOG a year ago, I had decided that it might be a good way to exchange thoughts with some of my closest friends, many of whom don’t live in the DC area – thoughts that go deeper than catching up on what our children are doing or where we like to go out to eat or what movies we have seen lately, the mundane crap that couples often talk about. I wanted to be able to talk about why I see a psychotherapist, something that my husband wants to ignore completely, and oh-my-God definitely not talk to our friends about. I wanted to talk about my personal longings, some of which are unreasonable, but are still there. I wanted to talk about what it is like to have been in a stable relationship for more than half of my life and how sometimes I long for more excitement. So my BLOG idea was one of baring your soul – getting down to those deep feelings that don’t ever see the light of day otherwise.

After I wrote for a couple of months, I gave my BLOG address to a few select friends and suggested that they start their own BLOGs. Unfortunately I didn’t get at all the response that I had hoped for. Several people refused to acknowledge it altogether. A few others said, “That’s nice. Here is what my children are doing...” One said, “I read your BLOG every day, but I could NEVER bring myself to write things so personal.” And yet another, the one who introduced me to blogging and whom I see in a professional relationship, was quite willing for me to read her BLOG, but refused to even read mine. My family totally wrote it off as the ravings of a deranged mom/wife. Those reactions all SUCKED! I could see that my plan was just not going to work.

So while I have been fairly free in giving out my address to trusted friends and I really don’t write anything that outrageous, I don’t have much of an opportunity for the kind of exchange that I had originally hoped for.

I am so intrigued with the fact that this younger generation basically lays it all out there. There is a basic honesty and willingness to tell all that seems to be totally absent in my generation – at least among those I have tried to lure in. So it looks to me like I am just going to have to find a younger audience among those who are already as addicted to this pastime as I am. Nothing like preaching to the already converted.