Comments on: To Tell or Not to Tell, That Is the Question

By: Just a Minute (June 2010 | breakthesky.net)

Just a Minute (June 2010 | breakthesky.net) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:44:18 +0000

[...] a happy medium with my “tell or not to tell?” dilemma regarding introducing my offline friends to this blog. There are still some kinks [...]

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 07:18:33 +0000

Hmm yeah, once you tell people about your blog, you can’t exactly untell them if you realise you don’t want them reading it!

I don’t want RL people reading my blog, so I don’t tell them I have one. Of course, I wouldn’t deny it was me if they found it, because it would be blatantly obvious that it is me, but the chances of anyone finding it in the first place are pretty slim, so I don’t really worry about that.

Maybe you can cross-post your travel adventures to a separate blog?

By: apandorabox

apandorabox — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:40:31 +0000

i think it’s a touchy subject…
my blog is coming public on sunday on local tv.. or something like that.. it’s a mistake an IRL friend made when speaking about twitter apps for cellphones, since i’m one of the most active twitters in his stream, my picture appeard on air…
if i’m lucky not a lot of people will see it… but if i’m not… i’m screwed… just like that

By: Catherine

Catherine — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:14:51 +0000

I don’t think there is much problem with telling offline friends about having a blog, especially if you’ve never written anything you would feel you’d need to hide. Personally my friends know I am active online though we don’t ever talk about it and I have told only my closest friend the URL of my blog. It is a little wierd if she asks me about something I’ve written but not totally uncomfortable, as I tell her most things anyway and I trust her.

Though I agree with Marie. Having a seperate travel blog on a free service and cross-posting the entries over there might not be too much extra work.

By: Marie

Marie — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:01:03 +0000

My thoughts on this are pretty similar – I don’t really talk about my personal life too much in my posts (that’s more livejournal territory, which is set to friends only), so I wouldn’t really mind if people found out about it. But at the same time, I don’t tell everyone I meet that “Hey, I have a blog”. I’ve mentioned to my friends that I do webdesign, but only a couple have asked if I have an actual site.

I think a travel blog is a fantastic idea, though. If you are worried about people still reading this blog after you come back, you can always create a separate one at blogspot or at wordpress. I know you are hesitant about maintaining both, but you can always cross-post your entries. It’s the best I can think of.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:22:26 +0000

I like Jenny’s suggestion. Just tell close friends who you’d definitely be okay with reading the blog on a regular basis anyway, if you have friends you feel that way about. In any case, once you’re back, there is always the good chance that people might lose a little interest; your real-life friends might feel like it’s the sort of thing they already know about. I find that unless people write blogs themselves or are incredibly internet-savvy, they’re not quite as interested as keeping up with them.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:38:19 +0000

Yeah, whether or not to “reveal” my online blog and identity has always been a question on the back of my mind. Like you, I won’t ever deny anything if people found out, but I’m not going to go out of my way to tell them about it either. Not that there’s anything they can’t read on my blog or Twitter or whatever, but I’m just so used to it being my “online” outlet that I think it’d be weird if my real life friends started commenting on my entries, lol.

I suppose you could always tell a few close friends about this blog, which is what I’ve done. You know, people who you can trust :)