Joe of bostonsteamer points out that “today is a really special day for bloggers. It’s the five year anniversary of the “girl on a bike” story.” You know what this means, right? Only three more days till the fifth anniversary of my girl on a bike MetaFilter double post!
Anyway, this bit Joe wrote really got to me because I remember exactly what he’s talking about, the way things used to be:

It’s fun to look back on the old days of blogging, when everyone was so wide-eyed and naive. People really opened their hearts so their readers could take a look inside. Every blogger had the same “coming of age”, where they’d post something that hurt another person, and after the fallout they’d realize, “hey, what I blog about really does affect my meatspace life.”

Maybe in the same way that you can’t call yourself a writer till you’ve actually gotten paid for your writing, you’re not really a blogger until your blog has screwed you in real life somehow?
A while back I had someone I really cared about tell me he didn’t trust me, because I was indiscreet and would post all sorts of secrets, never mind that I’ve never actually done that to anyone. I called him out on it and he apologized and took it back, but I couldn’t tell if the apology was sincere or at least as honest as the accusation, and anyway he’d already struck a chord; things changed after that. So then when Justin Hall went and had his infamous breakdown not a month later I took it very hard, as did most everyone I know who’s been putting personal stuff up for at least four or five years, before blogging really took off.
My natural impulse both online and off is always to share of myself. I’ve never done it expecting anything back, but generosity has always led to receiving so much from others in turn: laughter, affection and best of all friendship. So many of the relationships I cherish most today are with people I’ve met because of the web that I haven’t really done much thinking about whether living like I do has pre-emptively scared anyone away.
I did tell Clay once that I feel like I have more privacy now, because everyone assumes that I share everything and so it never occurs to anyone that there might be things I keep just for myself, and you can’t ask after what you don’t even know exists, after all. But now I find myself wondering how many times I’ve dooced my personal life without even knowing it. I know at the end of the day it’s really someone else’s loss if they choose not to value me as a friend, but I hate giving up on people and I hate the thought of people giving up on me. I don’t know what I’m really trying to say here—let me know if you do—but I do know what I want to say: please don’t give up on me. Buy me a beer if you must, sing a stupid song with me at karaoke if you can, keep reading if you want to, but don’t give up.