To Blog or Not To Blog

2018 Relaunch 9-years-after-this-post edit: At this juncture in my life (& I have no crystal ball to tell you about the future), I have no desire to be dating/in a relationship/with a life partner/married or have kids. For the first time (& after 20+ years of caring so much about this as the “end-all-be-all” life goal), I don’t care at all and am fully engaged in a relationship with myself. I love my own company, feel no lack, and – accordingly – feel complete and whole on my own; it is an absolutely revolutionary feeling and I wish I could have known it in my 20’s. More on that later…

To Blog Or Not To Blog

That is the question…

Hi everyone, so it was brought to my attention that because I am far from anonymously blogging that blogging at all about this topic could prevent me from eventually meeting someone long-term.  After hearing this perspective and mulling it over, it makes sense for so many reasons.  First, I am overly exposed – someone who starts dating me and stumbles upon my blog immediately gets to know all my inner thoughts which he might have found endearing had he had the chance to slowly get to know them.

Second, and woah nelly… I never thought about the pressure for future-interested-in-me-guy as another close guy friend pointed out.  I am trying to imagine reversing the situation & putting myself in said guy’s shoes… what would I do & how would I feel if the guy I liked wrote a South Asian Dating blog…?  Naturally, I’d always be wondering “if this does/doesn’t work out, if I do something right/wrong, will I be posted about?” & if I really liked the guy I would feel extra pressure over making a wrong move, living up to their expectations, etc…  Oh, & worse of all, any guy interested in me could very well put on a facade that he shares the same values, opinions & interests as me whereas in reality he doesn’t & has just gotten content from my blog.

The really tough thing is that starting this blog & getting such positive feedback (countless private messages from males & females alike – tons from people i do not even know- telling me how they can relate, what I am doing is great & my favorite – “you should write a book”) has been such a wonderful experience.  However, I also agree with what the person who was concerned said… anything that’s controversial is interesting, so no one is going to tell me that what I am doing is a negative thing (& moreover, no one else will likely tell me that “SmileMoon, you are shooting yourself in the foot”), but in the end am I really going to change anything…?  & more importantly, selfishly speaking, who cares if I change anything if I end up hurting/hindering myself in the long-run?  However, another person who disagreed entirely made an equally good point… would I really end up with a guy who was so sensitive to something like this & so caught up in what everyone else thinks…?  & that is true too… would I want to be with someone who cannot accept the go-against-the-grain, concerned for/try-to-save-the-world SmileMoon?  Probably not.  Ughhh….

I can honestly say that I am not sure what I am going to do with this blog, but one thing I can say for sure (& feel free to sue me if I do the contrary) that I would NEVER post about someone I am talking to, dating, or end up in a relationship with, but I still understand the potential for problems.  I could post about a general topic that relates to the masses like “what do when you’re not interested,” but at the same time be talking to someone that I am really interested in only for him to wrongly deduce that I must be talking about him.
However, I would like to believe that if a guy really likes me that this would not scare him away or at least he’d have the courage to talk to me about his concerns before running in the other direction.  Like I have said in previous posts, SmileMoon of real life doesn’t go on & on like this… one-sided conversations do nothing for me because I like to listen as much as I like to talk… nor am I anything like Carrie from Sex in the City as someone recently called me (other than the fact that we both like to write).  I would also like to believe that someone who is interested in me would want to get to know me & then be able to understand me for the person I am in person not via some pseudo-anonymous character on a blog.

I also hope that none of what I have written portrays me as being desperate or that I think being married is the end-all-be-all and not because I care what everyone thinks, but because it just isn’t true.  Honestly, if I was desperate to just “be married” and thought that it was some check mark I needed to complete, I could have been married many times over in the past however many years.  However, I did not just want to just be married for the sake of saying I was; I wanted and still want to find “the one” and like many other late-20-& early-to-mid-30-somethings I am at a place in my life that I did not expect to be… sans the one.

Most importantly, if I do take this blog down, I hope I have at least made some people think about what our generation’s issues are & why it’s become such a taboo thing that gets so much negative judgment to say that you want to be “settled, married, etc.”  Pretty much every single person I know is looking for the same thing I am, but for some reason, because I am saying it out loud, I have to worry about how I am being perceived & if talking about it will be a detriment to me… If you are the exception to norm – prefer living your life solo, do not want to “settle down” (I wonder if we hate that phrase b/c it includes the word “settle” in it) & appreciate your life more sans life partner than you think you would with one – please, I would looove to hear from you.
What’s so funny to me is that some of my friends or people I know who poke fun of “desi people being so desperate to get married” or who supposedly are not “hard-pressed” like everyone else, have profiles that I have stumbled upon Shaadi.com.  If you are single, have gone on blind dates, been set up through friends, have ever been on a dating website, went to any NetIP/SAPA/NetSAP conferences or go to any other related events, have asked your friends “will there be any guys/girls there?” before heading somewhere, you are looking for the same thing; I am just not sure why no one is okay with saying it.

Well, I have a lot of thinking to do…. my original intention with this blog was to start a conversation about South Asian dating issues in general, so maybe just a little clean up of “everything-SmileMoon” would be a good place to start…

As always or at least until it lasts, I’d love to hear your perspectives…

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COMMENTS:

Rahul S: SM, once again… congrats on sharing your experience!  I can see the concern given about sharing details of your past in such a public forum… however, has your readership and feedback gone up or down?  I think the bigger question is who are you and if you’re the person who’s willing to share your experiences on a public blog, then by all means continue to do so.  As for how it will impact your life… if you’re getting positive feedback and helping people, then it sounds like you’re already achieving exactly what you want… and maybe you’ll attract the one, because of the blog and not despite it.

Me:  Thanks Rahul.   Honestly, doing something like this blog is “who I am” as much as wanting to meet & be with the right person is. & I am not sure how much I am actually helping people or how something like this even could, but readership has definitely gone up & I have gotten nothing but positive feedback (anyone disagreeing with my point of view on something included b/c that means a discussion is happening). Well, I am still mulling it over, but as always, I appreciate you writing.

Nidhi: Having been in the same place (as a professional writer who happens to be single and of Indian decent) I commend you about being open about your experiences, because whether or not you meant for it to be, it’s a brave thing to do.  Whether you do decide to continue to blog or not, keep those experiences written down somewhere for yourself.  Much luck.

Interested Observer: I personally enjoy reading your blogs.  I think your blog on your dating life is probably calling some people out, since you are no longer anonymous. And they do not get to present their side of the story (accusing someone of cheating is pretty serious). It might be problematic for the future. But perhaps you are simply selecting for men who do not care much about privacy or appearances, and maybe that meshes with your lifestyle best anyway.

Anu: To blog or not blog? That’s not an easy question to answer but, what you can answer is what are your intentions with the blog? Why did you start this blog? What is the purpose of this blog? Is this a guy/girl bashing blog like others out there? Up to the minute status of the date was, like a twitter service? And if you are keeping in line with those intentions, purpose, etc then, it should not matter what anyone else thinks or how you are portrayed. Why? Because you cannot make everyone happy. There will aways be someone out there who will not like what you are doing. That’s how life is. If you keep everything you state somewhat brief and to the point then, you have nothing to worry about. Which you have done a fine job in that case. Getting into semantics of he said she said or how things really played out is ludicrous. All that has happened in the past. Let’s say you do meet someone and they do happen to come across your blog. It’s not like you are hiding anything. Stuff on the blog is probably the same thing you would tell the guy face to face anyways. Am I right or wrong about that? What you could do is take a sabbatical from posting when you do meet someone or something. I mean come on! This blog is what most of us talk about anyways with our friends regardless of race, color, creed, sex, etc. Plus, it’s not like you are judging a guy/girl with a fine tooth, comb here. I mean to a certain extent you would be compromising yourself and limiting yourself as well. I think you know this already. I have never known you to be or seen you to be a person of that caliber ;o) You should definitely think long and hard and analyze this before making decision of this magnitude. Also, FYI, I am not one of those guys that attends those conferences nor signed up for those marriage sites either lol shoot I do not even go to those parties either in the city lol. So, watch yourself lol j/k relax. Say hi to your bro and rents for me. Ttys!

Anonymous: Keep posting. Stop worrying. I think creating a blog is the smartest thing you can do. It’s thinking “outside of the box” and makes you a leader. The fact that you have followers is something that is impressive to anyone. If someone is worried about what you think or feel, then they should not be dating you in the first place. Screw the whole “let’s take time to know each other” bullshit. If you could have it your way, you would rather find out everything you wanted to initially so neither party would have to waste time on each other.

Anonymous: i’m not so ‘throw caution to the wind’ like the commenter above. fact is, its a risk – you can make a total fool of yourself in a very public way. if you’re very good at managing your image, and comments – then take the risk. do not be a julia allison. that would be tragic.