Behind the screen

November 25, 2012

Behind the screen

i think sometimes that we can forget that the people we know from blogs, online chatrooms etc. we don't really *know*. We just build up a picture of them in our minds, imagine what they must be like and it feels like we know them because of that picture and also because we come to know lots of 'facts' about them through reading their blogs or chatting about their lives. Of course, it is possible to build true friendships with people we only talk to on the internet and there are people who manage to have a long-distance D/s relationship through online and other means (phone, cam, etc).

But i think it's important to bear in mind that the image you construct of me from this blog is not the real me. You feel like you know me, but you really don't. i could walk past you in the street and you wouldn't recognise me, we could meet in real-life and i would likely be very different from what you'd imagined. i say this because often i get people emailing me as a result of this blog, wanting to be friends, to chat through emails, to get to know me better. And i'm fine with that, i'll ask and answer questions, i'll reply to emails, i'll make correspondences that way. But after a while they fizzle out - firstly because it's a very difficult way to make and maintain a friendship, secondly because they feel like they know me whereas to me it's like talking to a stranger, and often because i don't turn out to be the person they expected me to be, i don't behave in the way they think i will and they end up disappointed.

i'm also cautious about accepting everything i read online as being true. i know of a few cases where a popular D/s blogger has turned out to be not the person they represented themselves as (i.e. not the gender they wrote as, or not involved in the relationships they claimed to be). And this has also happened on the online chatrooms i go to, that people who have claimed to be in a real-life D/s relationship turn out to have lied and misrepresented themselves and those they claim to be involved with.

So i guess i would urge caution. No, i'm not making up the things i blog about here... but at the same time i am selective in what i write about, and the imagined 'libby' in your head is not the real me.

That's all.