Comments on: 1-2, I Got a Crush on You

By: ben wolfson

ben wolfson — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 18:28:27 +0000

What the shit, Adam—you don’t know me. I had a Usenet crush on someone who I met in real life, but she started dating someone else she met through the same group.

By: David Tiley

David Tiley — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 16:25:30 +0000

Gee, that was a gross joke, wasn’t it. Did it come from David or Barista? Seriously, I don’t think that online interaction with someone else, particularly someone I care about, is like the stuff we do in the real world. In that sense the real inner lovable me is not available online. You can’t massage bodies, only egos. I reckon my online self is another persona, intersecting closely with my meatware self and profoundly compatible with it, but nonetheless a self that just lives in another domain. When I started blogging I grew another me. In the real world, it most closely resembles the persona I use in the classroom – a mix of rants, jokes, examples, asides and encouragements. The me at dinner or in the pub is much quieter, and much slower. And yes I blog because I am motivated to by my real personality, where I am less confident and certainly short on freedom.

By: David Tiley

David Tiley — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 16:17:34 +0000

On the internet I’m not deformed.

By: Sandriana

Sandriana — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 09:56:00 +0000

Hey, I took a blogcrush and ran with it, all the way to Amsterdam. At this point, I can’t remember what came first, the blog or the crush. Whatever, the blog was integral to the whole process. (…already I have blogcrushes on the side though… throws sherbet-filled flying saucers at Fafnir. Does that make me a bad person?)

By: Zizka

Zizka — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 05:17:08 +0000

Does Ms. Waring know Sebastian Holsclaw? Now that would be a fun couple. Oh wait, this is the crush thread, not the matchmaking thread. Forget I said that.

By: Adam Kotsko

Adam Kotsko — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 03:57:48 +0000

I have historically been known to have a blogcrush on Belle, but it’s not nearly as serious as the blogcrush someone I know has on her. (He’s too shy to talk to her, though. That kind of thing.) Aside from that tidbit, though, this is an example of my blog persona not giving the full information that you might be able to pry from me in personal conversation—although in essence, Adam Kotsko is the same yesterday, today, and forever, whether he appears in the flesh or via the Interweb. This is especially true given the fact that I am often too lazy to get upset about news stories or editorials, so I just fall back on my personal life.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 16:26:12 +0000

Actually, the security guard’s name is Weasel. Bubba doesn’t work for us any more. He was just too nice for the job.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 16:19:10 +0000

I am pretty much the same in person as on the net, but the average person I run into (e.g., my ex-wife at a recent family-obligation-event) does not want to deal with the real me. And never really did, in her case. To the extent that I maintain a prudent message discipline in everyday life, my flesh and blood self is somewhat different than the annoying Zizka persona. So Zizka is the person I really am or would like to be, but am not allowed to be. In another sense, however, I have screwed up my life considerably by not suppressing the Zizka persona in day to day life. This is all just the dreams of the pwoerless, of course. The real Zizka is the editor of the New York Times. He is talking to William Safire this very minute, as a hefty security guard stands by, explaining to William that he should probably get a lawyer and has ten minutes to leave the building forever, and that Bubba is there to help him out.

By: Lindsay Beyerstein

Lindsay Beyerstein — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 04:09:22 +0000

I’m more exhibitionistic in print than I am in real life. I’m pretty shy face-to-face, but I’ll cheerfully sign my name to all kinds of inflammatory, contentious, speculative stuff. Maybe that’s evidence that blogs don’t reflect personality after all. But I’m not just a demure person pretending to be a blowhard. I just use the blog to give voice to my inner Bill O’Reilly.

By: fafnir

fafnir — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 01:20:32 +0000

Bob McManus you are absolutely right. Giblets doesnt hold nothin back lemme tell you. I try to put as much Faf as I can in Fafblog but as some longtime readers an my friends will tell you I have kept quiet about my personal religious beliefs on account of I do not believe the world is quite ready yet an we do not have enough oranges yet. Lindsay I do not know what you mean about written in character cept that folks are always comin up to me an goin “of Fafnir you are such a character” which I think is diffrent.

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 23:43:57 +0000

Personally I’m much more exhibitionist on my blog. I will never be seen at a dinner conversation engaging in even light political discussion, nor will I be seen at the local bar or with nearby friends fuming about the latest antics of Kerry or Bush. Blogs provide a suitable context to be exhibitionist without being as self-conscious or domineering (as you say, especially for us shy people). I imagine that for every daytime worker, night-time prostitute there’s a day-time worker, night-time exhibitionist blogger.

By: Lindsay Beyerstein

Lindsay Beyerstein — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 20:49:57 +0000

It’s hard read a lot of someone’s writing without getting to know them. This is especially true in the blogosphere because you get to watch the writer’s daily interactions with other bloggers and the larger world. People may selectively report details of their personal lives, but they give themselves away in other ways. For me, the two most revealing are conflict management and humor. People who seem respectful, secure, and funny online tend embody those virtues in real life. Some blogs are written “in character” like Wonkette, or, to use an extreme example, Fafblog. I’ve never met Anne Marie Cox and I don’t even know who writes Fafblog, but I suspect that if I these characters capture some very salient aspects of the authors’ personalities.

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 19:54:47 +0000

I retract my previous comment, out of fear of Belle’s ninja sister. I retract it in a gentlemanly fashion, however, by saying I should not have said it. In any case, I would hate for Chun to think he has been displaced in my affections. I am not sure what “crush” means in this context. Physical? Surely not. A pleasure in the content or style of a blog? A desire to be liked by the blogger? Yes, bloggers certainly reveal themselves in their writing, tho slowly if they write intellectual blogs, but I am also not sure there is that much variance in personality or character that crushes are rationally justified. We put our pants on one leg at a time. I like what Johb Holbo writes, and how he writes. He makes me laugh, he makes me think. Do I ask myself if I like Holbo as a person? Sometimes. It is fun to look for clues. There is little about Francis Bacon that does not appall me. I have 200 of his paintings in rotation on my hardrive.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 18:45:19 +0000

Interesting subject – one I’ve been thinking about for several years. “Or are people perhaps more exhibitionist in print than they would be otherwise?” Sure, often, but then the question becomes, is ‘otherwise’ any more real than ‘in print’? Maybe it’s the otherwise that’s the false self and the print one that is more real. In the land of ‘otherwise’ there is all that physical appearance stuff, all those mannerisms and bodies to deal with, all that presentation of self. In print – it’s just language. For some people, language is more central to what they are than presentation of (real world, embodied) self is.

By: chun the unavoidable

chun the unavoidable — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 18:40:52 +0000

I have a crush on Eric Rasmusen. Don’t much care for his blog, though.