You know me. Because I've shown you

Late last week, a friend relocated her blog after a colleague sent out the address in an all-staff email. She's only told a few friends about her blog and they don’t tell anyone else. She said she just didn’t want her whole life to be on show.

Looking back on my previous posts and the blogs I visit, I’m thinking our life is on show. There is precious little in here that isn’t personal. It may not be private, but it is personal.

We have our blog names and faces on, but it’s still us. We talk about our jobs, stuff we see, heartaches, hobbies, hopes, everything. Lots of times we put initials but these don't really hide anything for people who know us from before - if they read it, they'll know it's them. Everyone I’ve read writes so expressively I bet I could tell who wrote what if I read it without the sign-off. And if you pieced together the stuff you read, you could probably tell where they work if they were in your city.

That last point is the rub though. I haven’t told anyone I know about my blog either. I haven’t hidden the fact, I just…haven’t told anyone. It’s not that I don’t want people to read it – I do (or I would've just kept a diary).

Am I only comfortable telling the truth to strangers?
Does this mean you’d never have read this if you were in my city?
I hope not.
I like everyone whom I’ve read. I like the sense of community I feel, this constantly widening circle of new friends. Friends who come and show you things, tell you things, let you in. And I’d like to think if you were in my city, we’d be just as comfortable with each other. I want us to be.

“Hello. I’m The Box. It's so nice to finally meet you. My real name is-“