Sat 17 Nov 2007
I woke up at Mr. W’s house (on his living room couch) this morning and on my way to the bathroom, passed by his laptop sitting open on the dining room table. I did what I do a lot during idle times — clicked open Internet Explorer, where his Windows Vista automatically opens 3 home pages, the first being Google, the 2nd being some local news/weather/email page from his internet provider, and the third being this blog. I moved the mouse up to click on the tab for this blog…and it wasn’t there. He’d taken my blog off of his Windows. I was instantly offended and angry. It rang like a little boy’s tantrum, petty and annoying for effect. Except I knew him better than that; he doesn’t do the theatric drama queen thing; if he deleted it, it was because he truly had a desire not to see it and not because he was hoping I’d discover that and be hurt. Still, I gave him the benefit of the doubt — maybe Vista, which has proven unstable on his laptop, screwed up and when he had a chance to fix it later, it’d be restored? An hour or so passed during which he DID realize a problem with his laptop and took it into his bedroom to connect to an ethernet cable to fix, and after he was done, I looked again. No Cindy’s World. Just the first two tabs. He was nearby in the restroom area, and I asked, “Are you just never going to read my blog again?”
He instantly darkened crankily. “I don’t know.” I got off his computer and he said, “You can still go on your site.”
“You deleted the tab,” I said.
“You can go on there how you normally go. Just type in the address.”
“You apparently don’t want my blog on your computer, so I’m not going to access it from your computer.”
“You can still get on your blog on my computer, whenever you want. I just don’t want to read it right now.”
“No thanks, it’s your computer and I’ll respect it.” (Right now, I’m blogging from upstairs on my own desktop that he restored. He’s napping downstairs in his bedroom.)
Throughout the day of movie-watching, errand-running and him acting as normal as ever, affectionate even (which I didn’t reciprocate, saying I’m sick and likely contagious, walking with my hands in my pockets as he simply put his arm around my back), I started thinking about this. Is it REALLY something that should offend me? It IS his computer, he can set up his tabs however he’d like; he’s not saying “Don’t you dare open that stupid blog around me or on my shit, I don’t ever want to see or hear of it.” And is it REALLY any more petty than the fact that I hadn’t worn his ring since this happened (except for dinner with Lily and Arnold Wednesday night, cuz they hadn’t seen the ring yet nor heard of the engagement, and I rarely see them)? Besides, it’s not like he’s lying to me about the blog saying he doesn’t know why it’s gone or saying he took it off to keep prying eyes from it or something. He took it off cuz he didn’t want to read it anymore. Right now. Whatever that means.
When we had our forced talk after work on Thursday, he’d made angry reference to the Cirque post and how everyone supported me because of my skewed way of presenting the facts as if a stranger turned and was rude to me without any prompting by me (which I didn’t feel I did; I wrote of how the jerk responded to my “I don’t know why they have to sit apart” and my “What an ass.”), and how people online would support me blindly no matter what just cuz they’re online friends. So I know he’s read THAT post and its comments. But the kind of questions he asked about my day or what-not thereafter told me that he read nothing after that post, and likely deleted the tab immediately following his reading of that post on Wednesday, which is why he had no idea I was sick. I think back to how he acted last week, still dutifully visiting me for 15 minutes or so before leaving for home after work those days after he was so angry he deleted my blog, and I’m surprised he never said anything about it. If I hadn’t ambushed him to talk on Wednesday to which he responded angrily, “I think you’ve had enough talking about it with people on your blog,” he would’ve never brought up his displeasure about the post, either. That’s amazing restraint.
Anyway, my long-winded point is, if he’s not reading this anymore, at least I know I have the opportunity to vent candidly. At least “right now.” Whatever that means.
Such is the problem of having people you know read your blog. Having been the subject of many a rant and tirade by you know who’s blog, I can honestly understand where he is coming from, and that yes he does feel slighted without the chance to explain his side of the story. That being said you did present his side of the story, albeit at a later date, and by that time everybody had already passed judgement on him.
You’re right, and that’s the reason I did present his side of the story. I wanted it to be fair. But of course, he never got to read it…
I’m a little late with all of this …. but, he’s blogged here before. If he really wanted the readers to see his view, he could have blogged his side. This is Cindy’s World… the world according to Cindy. Not “Cindy’s world.. and how others view it”.
I mean, if you had blogged about something we did or something between us and I felt that it was skewed or you misrepresented me, I’d just post a comment explaining it.
Your blog is about your life.. and it’s not always going to be happy and uplifting… everyone has problems, every relationship has issues and there is no way of getting around that. Speaking candidly is something you should be able to do regardless of who’s reading your blog… but tbg is right, when people you actually know and a personally involved with, read the blog, at some point you’re bound to offend them (if you speak candidly)… you can’t rose shade everything.
Jordan – whereas you’re right that he could, if he chose to, comment for the 2nd time in his life on this blog, we all know he’s not going to. But instead of inciting an argument on my blog, he instead chose to just not read it anymore, which I think is better than him telling me what I can and can not write in my own space. He still has never said that it was wrong that I have — or that I shouldn’t have — written the post. Which is probably another example of his severe non-confrontational nature, except THIS time, it works for me instead of against me. He basically shushed himself then removed himself from the situation.