Those who know me in real life will know that I am quite a private person. I am not the loudest person in a group situation and often sit back and let the conversation wash over me. I do not talk about myself a lot, I dislike bragging of any sort. I hate being the centre of attention for any reason. One of the reasons I write this blog is to get stuff off my chest. I find it very hard to talk about some of the things I am interested in with my “real” friends because not many are interested in my esoteric opinions. I hate the idea of being the subject of anyone’s discussion. I hate the idea of being labelled because of my political opinions.
At one stage at university I joined Conservative Future. For some reason I thought it was terribly important that none of my new drinking friends from the hall of residence found out. I would sneak off to the Union bar to meet the other Tories (there were about three) on a Wednesday night and not tell anyone where I was going. This was in the early years of the New Labour government and being a Tory was not a popular pursuit. Eventually someone found my membership card and paraded it around the hall bar. My worst fears were confirmed, I was a pariah for a night.
I used to blog under my own name. A few offline people clicked on the site because they had been given the link. I am fairly sure my boss chanced upon my site, and once someone even stopped my mum in the street to say how much he had enjoyed reading it! This made me very uncomfortable. I gave up the original blog for professional reasons and started this one under a name which could not easily be connected with my career.
But since I gave up the old blog and started this one, I have been doing a bad thing. A terrible thing. The worst thing. I have been lying to some of my closest friends and family. Two friends, in particular, occasionally ask me whether I am still doing the blog. I don’t think either of them ever read the old one in any detail, but they are both interested enough in me as a person to ask how it is going. I tell them that I have given it up. I feel crap every time I do it, but a lie is so hard to get out of, isn’t it?
The reason for writing this now? Well, I hate lying for a start. I hate getting myself into a position where lying is the “solution”. Lying is never the solution. I can’t stand people who lie to me. I like to think I am a person of values, but by lying I am smashing them to pieces. So why do I even get myself into these scrapes? I don’t know, perhaps I am self destructive. The other day I went back on Twitter. I was cruising through one of my friend’s lists and saw that he was following another friend’s feed: one of the friends I have been lying to about blogging. Before I had considered the consequences, I clicked “follow”.
I don’t know why I get myself into these stupid pickles. I have a group of very close friends. I am very lucky to have such a group of wonderful people that I can call my confidantes and allies. I love them all more than I can express on a computer screen. I don’t know what I would do if I was spurned by any one of them. But I know they would not ditch me just because they disagreed with my politics. They probably know I am an evil right-winger already, but they still invite me round for dinner.
The stupidest part is that a couple of my offline friends are regular readers and commenters here. I chat to them about the blog perfectly happily. I am not ashamed of my opinions, I am happy to back them up in an argument at any time. But for some reason I have been paranoid about mixing up my online and offline existences.
So, dearest V and D: If you ever read this, I apologise for pretending I was not wasting my time writing crap on the internet. I was. I still am. I will be for a while. I write it so I don’t bore you to death when you invite me for dinner. Will you forgive me? Will you then delete the link?
Look on the bright side – at least they can’t say “get a fucking blog”.
I live up north with the sheep but you sound like a refreshing dinner guest. There are people that want to talk politics after all.
Hi Paul. Thanks
)
There are people who share some of the same interests as me, they just aren’t people I necessarily have socialised with face-to-face. I suppose I could join a political party…. I prefer getting to know people this way
Those who know me in real life will know that I am quite a private person. I am not the loudest person in a group situation and often sit back and let the conversation wash over me. I do not talk about myself a lot, I dislike bragging of any sort. I hate being the centre of attention for any reason.
Don’t know what you are going on about. Two bottles of port inside you and you get quite loud from memory.
The first para could describe me except that in company I do have a low boredom threshold. So for example, at the vicars for drinks a little while ago the conversation stalled for what seemed ages and I filled the silence with a polite comment/enquiry that led us onto politics. Boy did I regret that. I really regret speaking and wish I’d kept my mouth shut, if only I was more decorative I’d feel more comfortable doing so. So, you’re not the only one who doesn’t like mixing politics/real and heartfelt discussion with ‘real’ life. I’ve found that in ‘real’ life you can gloss over so much and not really communicate anything you feel/think or indeed who you are and can rub along quite nicely with people you barely know at all, even though you are stood next to them. On our blogs we can get to know each other pretty well.
Dearest Blue, I think you are quite normal; you want to everything to be alright.
I don’t blame you for not owning up to this blog!
No offence, but I’m a committed Christian who tries very hard to stick to the commandments but even I don’t get uptight about telling a small lie. The ninth commandment is “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” – in other words, don’t say you saw someone kill a man when you didn’t. It doesn’t say you can’t tell the odd porky pie from time to time. It seems to me that you prefer to blog anonymously out of concern for your friends and family – pretty much the same as me. I think that is a wholly justifiable reason for telling the odd white lie.
You must feel better now! Confession is good for the soul and all that!
I don’t know you, BE, but I accept your cringeing apology anyway. And I totally concur with Philipa, in fact my boredom threshold is so low that I’m not even going to fini
Confession is good for the soul and all that!
I bet you “extracted” some confessions in your time!!
H – I think you are probably a good judge of character, you probably know enough to know to avoid me like the plague!
Stan – thanks, but if I discovered a friend had been outright lying on even a tiny trivial little thing I would feel hurt.
John Bull – cheers!
P – yep and thanks
Richard – I only had ONE bottle of port.
Everyone lies. Apart from Jesus … and look what happened to him !
Three Hail Marys. Avoid sin. Try to avoid occasions of sin. Go in peace.
“Stan – thanks, but if I discovered a friend had been outright lying on even a tiny trivial little thing I would feel hurt.”
Well my parents lied to me for years about the tooth fairy, Father Christmas and countless other things but it’s never bothered me. I frequently lie to Mrs Stan …… “What do you think of this dress?” – “Lovely, dear” ….. and she knows it, but it doesn’t bother her. As long as you don’t lie about your true opinions and principles I don’t see what harm it does to hide things from people about yourself that aren’t, after all, any of their business and if you have to lie to do that then so be it.
It’s fine to have standards, but if you set the bar too high you’re bound to fail.
It could be worse. Someone mentioned my scribblings in front of the ex wife, cue quiet panic while I worried about whether I’d ever written anything hateful about her. I don’t think I have.
Machiavelli’s enthusiastic proclamation “You must be a great liar” endorsed the art of deception and self defence. Be a little more Machiavellian BE and disembarrass yourself
Blue Eyes, I feel a great empathy with you. Like you, I’m a private person. I’m usually the quite person in a group. I blog anonymously, and tell nobody. It is a secret, and I don’t want anyone to know. Not even my wife. (Though at least if she finds out, I know it will go no further.)
And so I dread being asked if I blog. I am pretty good at being evasive, but I won’t lie. Like Stan, I’m a Christian. Unlike Stan, I go beyond the 9th commandment and avoid white lies.
So far, so good. I’m thinking of starting a second blog so that if anyone asks me if I blog I can point to the anodyne one that has only two posts, both of which deal with the weather.
Funnily enough, even though people in RL know I blog, they have never had the curiosity to ask me for the address. Over the years I have become more relaxed about people seeing it although I wouldn’t like it to get confused with my professional profile
Huge nasty spitting rows when Elby and I have brought up politics with our Guardian reading friends. Now we never do it but allow ourselves a wry inward smile as they realise we were actually making sense and bring it up themselves. After one such blow out a friend reassuringly texted me that I was his “favorite Nazi”.
A guardian reading friend asked me the other day why I was a fascist? I told him I like the uniform. Strangely enough he believed me and can picture me in jack-boots.
:-/
EK – I try not to
HG – I’m sure a non-Catholic doing Hail Marys would land me up in Hell.
C – You would never bad mouth anyone on your blog, would you?
MTG – nah
Mr Brown – that is a subterfuge too far for me. The reason I wound myself into such a pickle on this one is that usually my friends know my every movement, nano-success and major failure…
L+P – I think being right is more important than being popular. I wish the Tories thought the same thing.
Couldn’t agree more, Blue.
I am also absolutely anonymous – oh yeah!
But Philipa, you were standing on his windpipe at the time, what do you expect him to say?