Posted by: Vix the Over-Educated Nympho
Topic: So many people are using technology to capture their lives – from camera phones to YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook – that the idea of living a “private life” is changing. What impact do you think this will have on relationships in the future?

Blogging can make one's dating life very messy. Starting new relationships is that much more difficult when a guy can Google you and and read your latest blog entry about the date you two had last night, including how he's a great kisser but maaaaan his breath was rank.

I am regularly amazed at how many people have Myspace accounts and blogs under their full/real name. Sex aside, I'd be scared of doing that even if the only thing I blogged about was my love of flavored croutons.

When it is so easy to be Googled by a prospective boyfriend, parent, boss--it requires that much extra care and forethought to protect one's privacy and identity. My own mother recently admitted to Googling me and my brothers to see if she could find anything "interesting." What happened to the good ol' days of searching under the bed in hopes of finding a diary?

For anyone who finds or knows your blog, he can spend his sweet time reading the inner-workings of your mind as well as how you like to masturbate before you've even gone on a first date. I've been there (just because you only tell a few people about your blog it doesn't mean they won't pass it around), which leaves the relationship dynamics severely lopsided from the beginning. Is it cheating before a date to spend hours reading someone's blog when he doesn't even know what your last name is? Isn't half the fun of meeting new people finding out--in their own words--how they came to be the person they are now?

It's one thing to blog about some random guy you saw/boinked once, it's something else entirely to write about someone you're in a relationship with. For the guys who pass by in the night, it is highly unlikely they would ever connect an anonymous blog with that girl he met two years ago.

With a boyfriend however, it seems that one ought to disclose her cyber persona in the name of "open communication" and not being single forever.

Eventually a new boyfriend will get suspicious when his girlfriend regularly disappears for an hour every night behind her computer screen. That brings up a whole series of questions about blogging and dating etiquette:

• Is it okay to write about the (dirty) details of someone you go out with once?
• Should you tell someone you're dating that you blog about him when you've been dating for a while but don't know yet if it's serious?
• When do you tell someone you're dating that you blog about him?
• ...and, um, have been blogging about him for a while now....
• Is it okay to write about someone if you never say anything bad?
• Is it unfair to tell someone you're dating that you blog about him and then ask him not to read it?
• What material is fair-game and what is off-limits when in a serious relationship?
• Are the so-called rules different for a short-term relationship?
• How personal is too personal when you're writing about someone else, especially if the other person is unaware of it?
• Is it reasonable to ask (and expect) him to only read parts of the blog?
• How can someone not resent you if you're more personal in a blog than you are in person?
• Does asking for privacy regarding a public blog lead to distrust and resentment in the relationship?

For the first year of my blog's existence, I was in a serious long-term relationship. Of course I wanted to respect by boyfriend's privacy, which meant I rarely wrote about our sex life and when I did there were no specifics. To hit the sexy quota for the blog I wrote about my past sex life. A word of advice: when your boyfriend occasionally reads your blog, that can lead to some long explanations (and some long spells without sex).

The relationship thing definitely effected what I did and didn't write about because there was always the possibility that he would read it. Why have a blog when you're watching every word you say? How can you talk openly when you have to censor yourself so you don't blog yourself into singledom?

I know I am not the only one out there writing explicit details about my physical and emotional experiences, which leaves me wondering what the hell am I going to do when I start seriously dating someone? There are some very open-minded people out there, but open-minded enough to accept seeing the details of one's daily life written up for all the world to read?

My solution... can I get away with never ever mentioning the blog to someone I'm dating? Hopefully my future boyfriend will believe me when I tell him that I spend three hours a night locked in the bathroom because I have severe Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Comments

[Matthias Urlichs]

You might try to find a self-assured guy who's actually quite OK with your writing. Or your past life. Or intimate details about your present life.

They *do* exist, y'know.

[Becca]

Well, I'm dating somebody. I have a new blog. He knows about it, and there's not one thing on there that I haven't already told him in one form or another. I don't know if he's read or not but he's got the URL if he feels so inclined.

[Joanna]

Hi Vix, I can see your dilemma. If I were you...I wouldn't hide who I am. My fiance and I both did that in the beginning of our relationship - we ended up having a heartwrenching break up. Getting back together after coming clean to each other. Being honest up front or at least when you know it is somewhat serious is important.

Here is another idea about keeping your life private on the internet. I would and do try to keep my life somewhat private, but if there is someone hell bent on knowing about you, well, they can pay a fee of $49.95 and get a nice little background check on you or hire a private investigator. I guess what I am saying is don't worry about stuff you can't change.

[Isle Dance]

I think it's important to respect privacy. Truth can be neutralized and honest at the same time. Now if I could just find my guy...! :o)

[Erika]

I have a truly horroffic story about this.

I posted to an alt. newsgroup for about 10 years. I used an anonymous email address and never used my real name. I didn't post explicit details of our relationship, just generalities. My boyfriend at the time knew about it, but he always pretended he wasn't really interested.

Boy was I wrong. When our relationship was on the rocks and I was pouring out my heart online, he was reading about it and secretly pretending that he didn't know. In fact he pretended that everything was fine up until I discovered everything--all the stuff he was doing online, including reading my personal email (how he got my passwords I'll never know); I felt incredibly violated.

I stopped posting to the group. I changed all my passwords.

I still blog, but I do so in a setting that allows me to control who reads it. I don't use my name or anything like it. I don't use any known email address or any derivation thereof.

People are remarkably predictable. They use the same screen names and usernames in lots of places. You can google screen names, usernames, email addresses, all sorts of things.

My current boyfriend knows I blog and is completely uninterested in reading it. I've even tried to show it to him--but he believes that everyone deserves a little privacy. And I'm grateful for that.

That being said, I still haven't given him access to my blogs. I figure that if he wants to know something about me, he can ask.