My Small World Story

Sometimes when you’re blogging it can feel like you’re talking into space. Not every post has lots of people interacting with it and, when you do have interactions, so often they are people that you’ve never met in real life. For some people this can be a very liberating medium to work in, but for others it can feel a little like broadcasting to no one.

But it’s not always like that.

Many years ago, when my mother and I were both blogging regularly, we had a subscriber in common. She found my mother’s blog first and began to follow mine as well, striking up interesting conversations in the comments as we discussed the ins and outs of our daily lives. Then one day she told us that she lived in New Zealand. My aunt lives in New Zealand and so my mother replied with the usual exclamation expecting the usual response:

“My sister lives in New Zealand!”
“New Zealand is a big place. I’m afraid I don’t know her.”

Except that’s not what happened. It turns out that my aunt had been her teacher while she was working on her graduate degree at the local university. We have since met her in person and keep in touch to this day (thanks to the wonders of social media), but there is a surreal “what are the odds” sort of quality to the whole situation.

Have you ever started a conversation with one of your subscribers only to discover later that you had friends in common? Or better yet, have you ever thought you knew someone based on their blog and later found out you were right?

Comments

  1. No that has never happened to me but I have thought about it being a really cool coincidence. However I have blogged with people I feel I have known for years even though I know I have never met them.

    1. And isn’t that a wonderful thing, too? I know a lot of people who have made friends IRL from folks they met online and it’s such a cool thing to see.

  6. I’ve never established a real world connection, but I have built rewarding online relationships with a small, but quality, band of other bloggers all over the world – maybe one day I’ll find a long lost cousin 🙂

  7. I’m worried that someone I know in real life will find my blog and then realise it’s me! They’ll know rather a lot more than I’d normally disclose in person about the inner workings of a lesbian widow’s mind.

    1. I used to worry about that, too. Granted, the most exciting thing about my life is when I make lasagna or my dog learns a particularly exciting trick. That didn’t stop me from worrying, though!

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