2007-03-23
Well here we go for the few of you that are left! I’ll probably unlock this current diary again soon with the hope that the lurker has been discouraged but give me a couple of weeks.The last diary operated under an Oscar Wilde quotation: ‘Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth’. And apart from the mask I have consistently told you the truth; I suppose there is always a question over the density of that mask. The untruths have always only been about trying to disguise who I am from people who might inadvertently stray here and learn things I don’t want them to know. As time has gone on throughout nearly four years of being here I’ve grown to be - not complacent - satisfied that there really is a very small likelihood that anyone I know or who knows of me will read what I’ve written. Hey - even when in an unguarded moment I admitted to Jo that this diary existed, as far as I can see she didn’t attempt to discover these scribblings - or at least she hasn’t got here yet.
There is also obviously the question - if you’re worried about people knowing the truth why on earth would you put it out on the net for anyone to see? And I don’t really know the answer to that except that I know I have gained tremendous benefit from having you friends comment on my paltry existence and tribulations here. And -if it wasn’t obvious - I actually enjoy writing!
So - a few weeks ago I noticed someone in my sitemeter stats whose location was given as Jo and Dave’s home-town (not where they live now, but where they originated from, where their family and a lot of their friends live). To start with I was moderately unconcerned, chance coincidence seemed the likely expectation. I did wonder, of course, whether it was Jo herself, but as the days went by and there was no other indication I guessed that was unlikely.
But then this person seemed to take more interest, reading a lot of back entries and at an alarmingly slow rate, I started to wonder about whether they were printing off, and from that thought it’s a very short step to panic. I asked them to identify themselves, they read more without doing so. I reacted. Maybe I over-reacted, but why take any risk at all?
So here I am - under the heaviest mask I’ve worn yet. So - why not more truth? So a few odds and ends that will disappear if and when I unlock. A few bits that the few of you I’ve had real-life contact with know a little of (one meeting, one telephone call, two e-mail correspondents. Is that it?)
[Deleted]
None of that matters, of course, unless you know me. It can only be of passing interest to you to know the truth - all I have done with that last paragraph is substitute a few words for the ones you already knew. And yet for someone in the know that paragraph could be the destruction of my life as I know it. Which I suppose just shows that truth only signifies if you know what it means.
Thanks for dropping by.