Well I should think it was rather deliberate on the part of the person doing the uncovering, but accidental on my part for being so stupid. It all started because of an old Craigslist post that had been lingering on the internet ....
In a half-hearted act of quiet loneliness and desperation, I re-posted a version of the ad Berlin had responded to. To be honest, I never really had much intent of responding to anybody unless of course something amazing fell into my inbox. Surprise, surprise, nothing did. But I admit, when you are bored, depressed and single, it can temporarily make you feel better to have interested suitors sending you email, even if they are nobody you'd ever go out with in a million years. At the very least it's somewhat entertaining. However, long after the emails stopped coming, the post was still there and one day somebody found it and did something I never imagined.... he googled it. And guess what came up? That's right folks, this very blog, with the matching parts of the original Berlin Craigslist posting.
So you may be wondering, so what? Now Mr. stalker here has an anonymous Craigslist post and an anonymous blog. Big deal! Well as it turns out I had mentioned on this blog that I had a profile on a certain internet dating website, and based on a few bits of coincidental information included herein, he matched it to my internet dating profile, and then used additional more revealing information in my profile to google me and figure out my real name. And then he sent me an email.
Subject: You were too articulate to be fake, but I had to check
To: pers-950910314@craigslist.org
Date: Thursday, December 25, 2008, 9:37 PM
Dear Writesfromtheheart (with or without the s),
Of course your ad is striking, unique, bla bla bla - I'm sure you've heard that over and over. In the spirit of "trust but verify", I decided to Google some of your phrases. At first, I felt a deep sinking feeling when I found a hit, thinking that I had fallen for a standard cut and paste job. But as quickly as it appeared, the disappointment turned to shock and anticipation as I found that you probably are who you say you are, and that all your writing is as articulate as your posting. Either that or you're one serious psycho, so nuts that you put a ton ........
I've managed to lose the rest of the email ...but needless to say he confesses he has some "strings attached" that need cutting, he found post highly intriguing, and he promises never to make me eat cheap ice cream. I thought that part was rather cute. I wasn't quite sure what to do. Did I reply? Was this guy trouble? Eventually my curiosity got the better of me. I had to see what happened, so I wrote him back.
OMG.
I am not sure what to say at this point. On the one hand I NEVER thought anyone would google that posting and find my blog - and on the other, it's so damn obvious I don't know why I didn't think of it myself. SHIT. I'm sort of freaked out, since those two worlds are totally separate, and the point of the blog was that it was an anonymous outlet of my own rather personal life ... not exactly ALL the information I would probably share a priori to a first date ... if you catch my drift. And presuming I did meet you, and like you - would that mean I couldn't write about you? And what if I started seeing someone else ... you know ... assuming we weren't all serious and committed and the like.. then you could read about THAT too.. and something tells me that would be a little bit weird. And what if I meet you and I think you're a goofball .. then if I write about it its going to hurt your feelings...or you think I'm a nut - then I get to let you read how you hurt MY feelings. This is kind of a problem.
But I am mildly intrigued by the fact that you aren't completely shocked and repelled by my atrocious (at times) , messy (often) and overly-emotional interpretation (constant) of some of my recent life events. Sometimes I wonder if I will one day look back at it and see it all as the somewhat juvenile musings of a grown-up diary. Either that, or I will give up my embarrassment and it will become the next best seller on the chick-lit shelf. Sophie Kinsella look out.
It's really true what they say ... when you start to write what's inside you - it sort of takes on a life of its own, and so YES this would make an incredibly interesting post, and I admit that I absolutley want to use this in a next installment ...so maybe I can protect your identity and you can recind that block on the cutting and pasting. It is really rather a fascinating twist ...
Now what are these strings you are talking about if it's not your wife? A girlfriend? Hmmm. Well I think you know how I might feel about THAT - seeing as I was all trusting and "wait and see how things pan out" before , and as you well know, Berlin is now on the list of men would eagerly push infront of a large, fast-moving vehicle. Don't worry. It's not a long list. But lucky for him he is FAR, FAR AWAY.
Too honest? U freaked out now? Oh well. It's hard to imagine I could say anything shocking to you knowing what you have already read. And since this really still is anonymous, I guess there's not much to worry about. But if you figure out my real name, just don't out me, K?
Oh yea - and I'm not a COMPLETE ice cream snob. In general I'm a total bargain hunter - with food , clothes, gas, everything ...But crappy vanilla or chocolate just sucks, and there is no such thing as a bargain that you didn't like. When you indulge, you might as well go all the way - that's my motto ;-D
WFTH
And here is where it gets scary.
WFTH (except insert real name),
After I sent the first email the lightbulb went off and I figured out who you were. I was going to write again but worried you'd think I'm dangerous or something - though after some of your confessions who knows, maybe someday it would earn me a "You had me at Google". So I'm writing from real me so it's fair - you could now cause me as much if not more problems than I could cause you. Please don't. I won't.
You did a poor job of concealing yourself, but fortunately most are too lazy to figure it out.
I'm permanently separated (8+ years), have a girlfriend, and it is that that is a relationship one could only call the living dead.
Don't out me, I won't out you, worst case we wind up friends. Y'know, someday, I'm going to use that motto of yours against you... :-)
-Tom
Tom-
If you get to use that motto against me, you are a lucky man. But I'm going to be honest - I'm not so sure - for a variety of reasons. For starters I posted that ad a while ago now, and I haven't been blogging a lot, so there is stuff you don't know. Namely that my husband and I are sort of talking again. Dating maybe. I don't know what we're doing to tell you the truth. It's not us back together, and I think we both agree that we need to take a good long break from the pressure of that, but the time apart has had a healing influence and we are in the process of mending some fences. Perhaps it will just be so that we can be better friends. But I don't know. No, there aren't multiple suitors. Berlin sort of broke my heart and other than this person I have been tied to for most of my adult life, I just don't know if I have the strength to do it again. At least for now. I reposted that ad to make myself feel better, or because I am slightly voyeuristic and love reading what people write - not sure really. But I haven't met anyone. A few close calls that fell through. They probably found my blog. Dear lord. So I don't want to give you any false hope. I've sort of started to think I need a break from heartache for a while.
I'm not THAT freaked out. I didn't go to great lengths to protect my identity - I just didn't want to make it easy. For obvious reasons, I don't want employers googling my name looking for my work and finding that blog instead. I really never thought anybody would be digging all that deeply though. Jeesh. I admit that I sort of don't love that you know all about me, since, while I am not all modest and shy and everything, I also sort of like having the power to reveal the details as I see fit. Most people close to me already know all the stuff I write about anyway. Not *everything* but pretty close. When it comes to new people, I kind of like the power of being able to control what they know.
I may go back into that blog and make a few changes just to make it a little bit harder should there be any additional overly enthusiastic googlers out there.
-WFTH
It was more or less the truth. The holidays had been kind of rough on me. I found myself feeling sentimental and nostalgic for a sense of family. My X was the only family I had. We spent Thanksgiving together, then Christmas, and ultimately New Year's Eve, though by then I was starting to come to my senses. I was dating, but the prospects seemed pretty bleak, and I was just confused. Tom and I emailed back and forth a few more times, revealed a few more personal details and swapped photos. I can't say he was really my type and so I let the whole thing drop, and he stopped pursuing me. I sometimes wonder if he is reading this.
A month later I met the doctor, and it was (dare I say it?) love at first sight. More or less anyway... I was crazy about him from date one when we essentially closed down the local Vietnamese restaurant and he impressed me by using chopsticks. He didn't kiss me that night, but he did immediately text message me and tell me he had a great time and would I like to do it again. I was equally enthusiastic, and we texted for a while until he finally said I should call him instead and so I did. And we have barely been out of each other's reach since then.
Once our relationship became serious - which was almost instantaneous- I decided to reveal that I had a blog. I didn't share it with him, I just told him about it. Primarily it was because I didn't want to lie. I would spend several hours on my couch writing and invariably he would ask me how I spent the afternoon.
"Oh just writing." I would say.
"Writing? Are you working on a story?"
"No, not really." This is just for me"
"Like what?"
After a few times of skirting the question, or just making up a bald-faced lie about what I was doing I decided to fess-up.
"Well actually, I have this blog ...." and then I told him that it is a series of personal memoirs and such, mostly about my relationships and my divorce and whatnot. I was deliberately rather vague.
"Is this something you want me to read?" I wavered on this question.
"Ummmmm. Not really. Maybe some day. possibly. I don't know. It's sort of personal. But maybe... or maybe not."
"OK then"
I really wasn't sure if I wanted him to read it. On the one hand I wanted him to know me -- all my faults and flaws. I was tired of being someone I thought I was supposed to be. I wanted to see if he could love me and appreciate the way I was, even with a past as sordid as mine. I wanted him to know about all the cheating and Craigslist, and my whole period of exploration and reinvention. But on the other hand, I was a little worried how he would take it - and assuming he was fine with it, then what? Would he keep reading? And what would that mean for what I could say about us?
We dropped it. But I was truthful from then on about what I was doing when I was blogging - and one day I left the browser window open -- not on purpose -- but I had stopped being very careful. I had ceased to worry about it. He hadn't brought it up again, and I didn't think he was that interested. So I decided not to be secretive.
But apparently I had sparked his curiosity after all, and once he saw my blog name, he couldn't resist. He looked it up one night and read the entire thing from start to finish.
The day after he read the blog, I came over for dinner, completely unaware of his new knowledge of me. He was acting really funny. Avoiding my eyes. Answering my questions shortly. I thought maybe he was mad at me for some unknown transgression. Finally, after he put the kids to bed, we cuddled up in his big oversized chair. Now that he couldn't get away, I asked him what was wrong. And he finally confessed.
"I did something."
"What?"
"It's hard for me to tell you." He was squirming a little, avoiding my stare.
My heart immediately started pounding and my mouth went dry. Oh my God. Did he cheat? Did he meet someone else? Was he unhappy and going to break things off?
I swallowed hard and decided to be brave.
"Why is it so hard? Spit it out."
He squirmed some more. Took a few deep breaths.
"This is really hard. You don't know what it is? You really don't?"
"How could I possibly know? Just tell me."
There was an excruciating pause.
"I read your blog. I saw the name on your computer. I thought you wanted me to read it. SO I did.
I breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Shit. I thought it was something serious. We were quiet for a moment while I let this sink in and he waited for me to react.
"So what did you think?" I asked.
"I think you are enormously talented writer. And that there are lots of things you didn't tell me."
The truth is I had already told him a lot. I had told him that while I was living in New York I had a number of affairs - most of which were nothing more than modern-day technology assisted Loooking for Mr. Goodbar one-night stands. I told him about the Craigslist ads. And I told him about Berlin.
He shocked me then by not being shocked. In fact he seemed rather impressed that I asserted my sexual independence in this way, and that I had it in me to go trolling around for sex on the internet . Of course he made sure I didn't think the whole cheating part was OK ( I didn't) or that I thought that was the sort of communication I wanted in my future relationship with him (again, very much did not want that) . But he not only was not repulsed, he wanted details.
This immediately made me embarrassed, because this blog is the only place I have ever uttered any details of any of this period in my life, and the most freely I have ever talked about sex. The truth is I am just not that comfortable talking about sex - something I figured out immediately once I was face to face with someone who was. So eventually I choked up . Which is probably why he was so curious what I had to say about it here.
I think what he found surprised him. I have never actually asked him, but I imagine he thought it was going to be more of those sort of sordid sexual details and less of my emotional fumblings. He told me it mostly made him sad for me, to see how bitter and angry I was over the whole Berlin business. And that he thinks I was completely wrong in expecting something more than what I got - under the circumstances of the relationship we created.
That made me a little uncomfortable. Deep down I agreed. I had been naive and foolish just downright stupid, over and over again. But I didn't want him to see me like that. I wondered how my outpouring of love for Berlin made him feel- now that I felt so strongly for him. Did it cast doubt on my true feelings? Did it make me seem weak and overly emotional? Did it make me seem like a woman who didn't know her own value, having given so much so easily? I was suddenly very self-conscious. I had just given him a glimpse of my innermost thoughts, and now he had the opportunity to critique them. He had the opportunity to see them in their most raw and unedited form. The unfiltered. What would he make of it?
It did begin to give me some insight into his personality though. It became clear, that he saw my actions from a clearly logical perspective. He saw my expectations, my desires and my dreams - and felt they were misguided. He saw everything as a series of logical choices and expectations wanted to right my thinking. But what he couldn't seem to see, was that emotion clouded my judgment. That expectations when it comes to love are not necessarily based in realism and reasonableness. Sometimes we love just because we do - even when it is all wrong for a multitude of reasons. The trick is falling in love with someone who will love you back for all the right ones.
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