Blogger Love Has Always Been Dangerous
A tipster sent us a reminder today, calling us idiots and pointing us to a 2004 Modern Love column from the NYT, which we will refer to as "The Dangers of Blogger Love 1.0." A young female blogger named Heather Hunter met a boy-blogger, through their respective blogs. And the girl found out about another woman in her guy's life... through that woman's blog. Read on, for the blogger-love warning that went ignored.
Love-scorned and willing to share every gory detail, albeit anonymously, I had, within my first year of blogging, effectively vilified my ex-boyfriend to the Web-surfing masses (2,000 daily readers, at last count). Sex sells. Apparently, so does angst. But these days, while I am hardly shy about revealing juicy details of romantic encounters with foreign tourists, I have become much less inclined to tell the whole, sordid truth. I have learned the hard way that there can be such a thing as too much information...
That's when she found out about the Other Girl (she was on his blogroll, how indiscreet), and read her blog compulsively.
Because the Musician and I had met through our respective Web logs — and thus always understood that oversharing was an inherent risk — our relationship had never been terribly traditional. We didn't seem to spend time wondering what the other person was thinking. In my case, I figured I'd just write about it anyway.
...Although good sense told me that blog-stalking my lover's lover wasn't the healthiest approach to the situation, compulsion trumped reason, and I stalked freely.
It wasn't long before I knew about her preferred sexual position (her toes had to be pointed), her birth control (the pill) and her cup size (34C). And the more I read, the more I was convinced that she was more stylish, more intelligent and more charming than I could ever be. If she wrote about applying a "contouring duo" eye shadow before one of her dates with the Musician, my mind raced: Did I even own a contouring duo, much less know how to use one?
Contouring duos. They're kinda overrated and make things more difficult than they need to be—much like blogs! But. Girlfriend had her say in the New York Times. So SHE WINS!
