just over a year ago i committed myself to the folly that is blogging. (couldn’t someone warn me?!)

i’m not one to go back on my word, so if  i say i’m going to do something, you’re pretty much guaranteed that i will (which is why you don’t generally catch me mouthing off about my intentions!).  so i guess i thought that  publicly stating my intention to run a 10k, would make it impossible for me to back track. and yes, i did eventually complete two 10k races last year. besides the numerous hours and kilometres of training on the track.

so, it worked. and i even  squeaked onto afrigator’s top 45 women bloggers list.

it didn’t take long, though,  for this blog to be overtaken by all kinds of other topics, cos really,  i write about what’s on my mind – and what’s on my mind tends to come out pretty much uncensored.

aye, there lies the rub.

being a VERY minor public figure, i soon bumped up against the quandary of what might be TMI. i know  not to write too much about what happens at the studio or to reveal upcoming storylines for the soap which is how i earn my living, but this being a personal blog, it’s hard not to write about what’s going on with me personally.

and maybe that’s why i stopped blogging for a few months. i blogged intensely about the break-up i was going through at the end of last year, but then in the aftermath of trying to gather the pieces of a very shredded heart, i came up against another issue.

internet dating.

now,  i never thought that i’d ever find myself on a dating site, but in trying to move on, i did sign up for one. i even took out a 3 month prescription. the only problem was that, i don’t know about you, but when i meet someone new, i want to control what  info  i reveal about myself. at least initially. and that’s rather difficult when you’ve splattered intimate details of your emotional life all over the internet. not that i’ve anything to hide – i just like to be the one in charge of what is revealed. and when.

and in any case, what do you write once you’ve met someone new, “uhm, met this guy online, we went to dinner. he’s really nice. i think i like him, might want to go on another date.”, when there’s the likelihood that he might be checking in on your blog. i dunno. i found it weird and so i just stopped blogging altogether.

look, i must admit that i found internet dating weird too. first of all, because of my day-job, i couldn’t put up a pic and without a pic, you don’t really get many responses. of those i did get, a fair amount took my “not the usual suspect” tag to mean that i was into threesomes or some casual “discrete encounters”. not! i did go out on a few dates, with some nice guys, but none of them went anywhere, maybe because i was still way too involved with my ex, who in any case  soon wound up not being my ex anymore.  so i was very happy,  even before  my subscription expired, to delete my profile.

and then when the ex and i got back together, it all seemed too tenuous to talk about, so i maintained my  silence till i started blogging again just recently.  and ironically, now  it seems that it might be back to just me and my dogs, and i still debate about what i do and do not say in a public forum. i do know i’m not going back to internet dating, so that’s not an issue anymore. i’d rather die a spinster than try internet dating again. at least while i’m in south africa. i might give it a try should i move back to the states, but not here. and i’m just a little confused about how much i reveal online when there’s the public persona that people see on tv and think they know, versus the very real flesh and blood and flawed candid camera version that is the real me.

other bloggers, what is your take? do you hold back on what you put out for public consumption? should one?