Reluctant promotion
The first time I met X, he told me I looked familiar. I’d never seen him before. I would have remembered. But he insisted that he had met me. For a brief moment, I wondered if he “knew” me via the internets. Did he lurk on my blog? Had he come across my photos on Flickr? MySpace? Facebook?
Nope. Our paths had crossed in a much more simple way, at school.
A couple weeks later, X introduced me to some of his friends at the Los Lobos concert and I heard the same comment from his friend.
“That’s what I told her when we first met,” X said.
“Yeah, but it was a pick up line,” retorted M, another one of his friends.
“No, it wasn’t,” he defended himself. “She really did look familiar.”
Once again, I froze. Why was I familiar to this girl I’d never seen before? I really hoped it wasn’t my blog. But it was much easier. She had billed me for an ad in La Gente de Aztlan, a student-run magazine at UCLA.
And what if X and his friend did know me from my blog? Would that be weird? Yeah. I suddenly quiet down whenever my blog comes up in “real life.” I mumble an affirmative response whenever a new acquaintance asks, “so [insert mutual friend] tells me you have a blog. He says you’re a blogger.”
Ugh, yeah.
I’m no good at self promotion, shameless or otherwise.
I really need to get over this. I’m proud of the words I write here and I like the fact that someone reads them… even if that person knows me in “real life.”
You should be proud! Confidence in yourself is not a bad thing, only blind arrogance would be bad. It’s good that you question yourself, that keeps us real. Just don’t questions yourself too much! Good luck and keep blogging.
I agree you should be proud of what you write here. I find it entertaining and insightful and it allows me to get to know you more than just as my cousin Cindy. I enjoy checking in and seeing what you’ve written, it’s always so thought provoking. So…keep it going, don’t doubt yourself…
I know how you feel- but I think you need to get over it! I can’t count how many friends I’ve made through blogging, and frankly, I’ve gotten to know you a lot better because of blogging.
Though I don’t shamelessy promote my blog either. I hate defending to people “why do you blog? Isn’t it just a diary? I don’t get it…” If you need to ask that persistently, then I feel like I don’t need to promote it to that person. But if I find out the person is a kindred soul i.e. a blogger, and they don’t have a creepy cyber stalker vibe, I’m ok sharing it. It’s also why I have a “professional” public blog, and a personal “private” blog. The public one is for sharing.
Share the blog. But only share it with the kindred.
It almost feels like you are being stripped naked when someone talks about your blog, doesn’t it? I am the type of blogger who will just blog away with a rawness and have very little self-editing. Then after it’s published, I’m like, “Oh. Dang. I said all that?”
My poor husband is often the one who winces at my blogging. He’s like, “Geez, do you hafta put everything out there like that?” Yes, I guess I do. I can’t stand those blogs where people only like to broadcast the wonderful and entertaining things they do, with lots of pictures. It’s like they are really trying to script their life.
Me, on the other hand, I’m gonna let you know with a quickness that I got a green tag on my fence telling me my utilities are gonna get cut off tomorrow…and that being married is TOUGH…and that having kids is as draining as it is fulfilling. But that’s just me.
I’ve had people come up to me and call me Pearmama. I’m not Pearmama. I’m Denise. But they call me that. Or they laugh and mention something I wrote. And I realize…these people don’t really *know* me…but yeh, they kinda *do* because of what they have learned about me on my blog.
It’s just one of those moments when you realize that yes, there are people reading what you write and that you have an audience. It’s quite sobering!
But yes, keep blogging. Miss Cindylu, you are inspiration to lots of people.