It is something no one wants to hear on a first date.
Especially if you’re a blogger.
Especially if you’re a blogger who details epic stories from your dating life on your blog.
“I googled you.”
We hadn’t even finished our first margarita when he said it.
“Oh no!” may have been my reply, or maybe it was, “Oh really?” I can’t remember. “What did you find?”
“I found your blog,” he said.
I mentioned I was a blogger when we first met, so this wasn’t exactly a shocking revelation. Still, who googles people before the first date? Isn’t that a well-known faux pas? Maybe, but I liked his honesty. Most people who google before first dates keep it to themselves. From the moment I met him, he felt genuine, like he had nothing to hide. A quality I find extremely attractive in a man.
What did I have to hide? Nothing since February. That was the month I attached my name to my blog. Since then, thousands and thousands of words extolling Mary Lane’s Dating Failures (among many other things!) have been available for all the internet to see. A simple “Mary Lane New York” in your typed into your search box and voila! More than any first (or second, or maybe even 22nd) date should EVER know about me!
So of course my next question was, “How much did you read?”
“You like cupcakes. And tequila shots. There were pictures of you in a red coat.”
“Ah,” I said, relieved, “I’ve written better stuff than that!” But I was glad he’d only read my blog “coming out”– an utterly unrevealing post- if you already knew my name is Mary Lane. That was the only big secret in that one.
Google let the cat out of the bag, to use a cliché. He knew about my blog before we’d even been on a first date. Any personal blogger has run into this conundrum: when do you tell people that you blog? Especially if you’ve blogged about them? It is tricky, tricky ground. It’s something I’ve given much thought to recently, after a conversation with an ex-boyfriend revealed his feelings about my writing. I’d never really considered it from such a personal stand point before. “Well I didn’t write any thing bad, so it’s fine,” was usually enough for me. Now I’m not so sure.
I’ve never read anything anyone has written about me. How would it make me feel? I have no idea. This whole conundrum would be solved if I just date a stand-up comic. He can talk about me in his sets, I can write about him in my blog! Neither will take the other too seriously! We’re each addicted to making people laugh, now we can reach two different mediums! It’s a perfect match!
But I wasn’t dating a stand-up comic. I was dating this guy. Well, I wasn’t dating him yet. I’d just met him in a fantastic way, on the street, and then had the best first date ever, at Coney Island. Two great experiences, two great stories. When things happen to me that are great stories, well, I get really excited to blog about them…
He knew about my blog…would he be reading them? I decided to assume he would. Which is really what I do when I write about any one. So I wrote that great post about meeting him and day drinking. I was pretty pleased with it, and all you readers seemed to love it (thanks guys!). I’m not sure exactly why, but I made a decision.
One I’m still not sure if it was the right one.
“I wrote about you in my blog.” I texted him. We’d only been on two dates. This is probably worse than “I googled you” on that list of “Things You Don’t Want Your Date To Say“. I showed him the link. He read the post. He didn’t hate it. He liked it actually. Enough to share it with his friends. Enough to make him want to read more…
Enough for him to read enough to make him afraid of what I might write about him… It became one of those jokes…that’s not really a joke. That’s funny…but you know you have to take seriously. “Don’t blog about this.” He would say, time and time again. “I don’t want to tell you what do. And I want you to keep writing, because you’re really good at it. But please don’t blog about this.”
Spoken with genuine sincerity, that’s something I feel the need to honor.
Even if we’re not seeing each other any more.
WHAT?
Yep. Sorry to disappoint y’all. Didn’t you just go to a wedding with him? In Colorado? Yeah, I did. But now it’s all done!? Yeah, looks that way.
Here’s what I’ll say- Colorado was super fun, I think I can say that for both of us. Even so, the weekend made it crystal clear we had no future. If I wanted to, I could go into several blog posts outlining why it ended, exactly what happened. But I don’t want to. More importantly, I don’t need to. Sometimes I need to write to process things. In times past, I’ve truly needed that. Not this time. This time is simple. I had so much fun, almost every minute. I won’t be burning any of the stuffed animals he won for me at Coney Island- Happy Pig, Sad Bunny, and Apathetic Bear are safe.
But it’s done. Enough said, enough blogged.
Now I’d love to know: What are your feelings about writing about other people? How much should I worry about it? When would you reveal your blog to potential dates?
I’m actually excited for this to happen to me haha. Looking forward to being googled and having my blog found 🙂
I ran in to a few problems with this in the past. Back when my theater group [By The Mummers] were doing vlogs to help promote our shows. We would use heightened comedic caricatures of ourselves. The heightened version of Laura was the “desperate to get a guy, hopelessly single gal”. So I had all these videos out which were hilarious, but confusing.
When I would start dating people I would purposely try not to tell them my last name, because as soon as I did (and was google-able)…I had to also explain how [Mummers Laura] was not real Laura. Mercifully most of these vlogs seemed to have disappeared from the internet. So I haven’t had to awkwardly explain away “single lady with a cat desperation” on 1st and 2nd dates in quite some time.
But to answer the question, if you don’t know the guy very well yet, there is no reason he needs to know all this information about you on date number 1 …he could be the “e-cupid serial killer” or something. I’d try to wait a few dates before telling them about the blog…but to do so you may only get to tell them half your name, which keeps you from getting googled… but may also keep you from getting connected. Just don’t write about him yet, if he doesn’t know about the blog…it’s only fair he should know what’s out there in the world about him.
I’m soooo glad I met my husband before blogging ever entered in my mind!
Catia 🙂 x
http://www.livelifelovelipstick.com
I google EVERYONE, haha. But I would be afraid that people would freak out if they googled me before a date.
I tend to take the attitude of, “If you can’t deal, we don’t have a future,” when it comes to my blog.
But that said, I have some pretty strong boundaries around writing about dating. Someone has to have become a pretty established part of my life before I might mention them on the blog, or in the case of writing about a disaster… quite a little time will have to have passed before I’d consider writing something about it to give myself time to process it privately.
In general, the waiting period is something that’s become a bigger and bigger thing in my writing process…. When I was younger, I used to just do stuff and turn around and write about it, and now I like to savor it a lot more… Consider whether I do want to make it public, consider why I want to make it public, and just process stuff internally more.
I like to write about people and indeed have dedicated posts to dates, this was fine until my now boyfriend read them and decided to read in to them and decipher more than I had ever written! When someone you’re in a new relationships appears to go back and read all your posts, that’s stats counter, I think it makes your a little
Vulnerable because suddenly they know so much about you when you still know very little.
Although he appreciated my writing and enjoyed some posts so it’s work both ways.
Sad to hear your amazing meet in the street hadn’t come to anything more but sounds like it was fab during it’s lifespan
🙂
Never had someone admit to googling me and I’ve never googled anyone else before a first date – ruins the mystery. What if they’re a convicted bank robber? It would just take away all the fun.
Years would pass and it would have to be a serious relationship before I tell someone about my blog. When you write in the moment to vent, your language can seem a bit strong and make you look bad. Plus I write about embarrassing failures – not a turn on.
I’m also of the “google everyone” camp;-) And as a blogger, I think as long as you’re not giving away names and social security numbers (we’ll go ahead and throw photos in there for good measure), you’re probably in the clear to write whatever your heart desires!