My older sister and I are four years apart, but we’ve been mistaken for twins. I don’t think our faces are all that similar, but I can see how two Asian girls who happen to have the exact same height and build, tend to wear similar color schemes, and talk at the same rapid-fire clip with incomprehensible inside jokes might come across as twins. I’m making plans to visit her in D.C. for a long weekend and the basic plan is to eat our way through the city, so we’re scoping out key restaurants to hit in the most strategic order. I can’t wait.
I’m also tossing around the idea of meeting up with a few online friends from the D.C. area, which would be my first blogger meet-up. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how I can explain to my sister how I know these people. Not college friends. Not former co-workers. Not even friends of friends. What do I say? I met them on the internet, but they’re not creepy men, I promise. Not that I’ve met them before in person. Because that’s not sketchy or anything.
The underlying issue is, of course, that my sister doesn’t know about this here blog. I do my best not to post something that might be hurtful if she (or the rest of my family) were to stumble upon the site somehow, so I’m not opposed to her knowing, but I’m not exactly volunteering the information. If she doesn’t ask, I don’t answer, and she hasn’t. That is, conveniently enough, she has not asked, “Hey, do you have a blog?”
I suppose that I can simply pretend that the people I’m meeting are college friends and be done with it. That option makes me feel squeamish because my sister and I are so close, so the thought of passing off the meet-up as something that it’s not is really uncomfortable. I have visions of having to make up back stories for these people: what they majored in, how we met, that funny time we had a Silly String fight on the quad. Ugh. I have a terrible poker face. It would never work.
On the other hand, I could tell her about the whole thing. My best guess for a reaction is that she’ll be surprised at first, but then she’ll want to whip out her laptop to see just what that sister of hers has been saying on the internet. Then I’ll have to swear her to secrecy, at least with our parents. That scenario isn’t too painful, I guess.
I don’t know if it’s self-protection or what, but I like having this corner of the universe for my own. I know that it doesn’t really make sense because a handful of other folks tune in semi-regularly. I get nervous when I think about telling people in my actual life that I have an online writing venue.
Hm. “Online writing venue.” Now, that has a ring.
4 comments
I hear you - and I think it’s going to be a tough decision. It’d be hard NOT to be honest with a sister, not that I have one or anything, but I do know the feeling.
Good luck with what you decide - and SQUEE for meeting bloggers. Good times!
I’m SQUEE-ing with you at the thought of some actual, in-person conversation with online people! I don’t think the awkwardness of coming clean will override that excitement, so that’s good.
I’m “sketch” about my blog, too. Not on purpose–I just started it as a writing exercise and didn’t feel the need to share it. Now it’s like, I’ve been at it so long and have all these blog friends, that it will be weird if / when I tell all my friends and family about it!
Along with the weirdness, I have this sneaking paranoia: what if MY sister has been keeping a secret blog from ME?!
A few of my greatest friends I met on-line about 7 years ago, three of us took a cruise together a few years after meeting, and when people on the cruise would ask us if we were college friends, we’d laugh and say “Nope, we met on the internet”…oh the looks we received!
I understand your aprehension about telling your sister, but I bet once you do, she’ll get it.
I hope so! I would have loved to have seen the reactions you got on your cruise.
first, GAH that I won’t be here to meet you!
as for the secret…hmmm…yeah I don’t have that problem because apparently everyone on earth like my mother’s friends read my blog (I am such a blabbermouth about it, I need to shutup once in awhile), but I guess I would just come out and tell her, and swear her to secrecy. She will like reading it, I bet! It’s not like you have super top secret stuff on here, right?
I know, it’s a bummer that we can’t hang out! I don’t have anything scandalous here (uh, right?); my combo of Asian and New England Puritan take care of that. It’s just weird, I think. But I think you’re right in that she’d probably enjoy reading it. And maybe commenting. Oh, heaven help us.
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