Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Unintended Consequences; Letter to my wife.

You could say the world is full of unintended outcomes... We elect former-President Bush, a republican, and we end up having eight years of a democratic government; we invade Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction, and that war becomes both his legacy and his downfall. I could go on, but really, I'm just looking for examples of unintended results to broach the point of this diary entry.

Mikey was correct in that I went through a few names prior to thinking up the brilliant gender-neutral name of "Zoe Strickman," a perfect conglomerate of the names of those of my past who have made me who I am today. You should know that the name "Zoe" is not pronounced "Zoey" (the woman's name), but it is just as it is spelled -- "Zoe," which in truth is short for Lorenzo, a man who I listened to almost daily for many years of my life and who I looked to for guidance in forming the person I wanted to be.

So Mikey was correct in mistakenly calling me by a previous blog name which was short for "Hershey Kisses" and "Hershey Park," formerly two of my favorite foods and places respectively prior to becoming religious to the point of keeping cholov yisroel and being introduced to Six Flags, my new favorite theme park spanning across the US of which I've visited many of their parks under one unlimited summer past during one fun-filled summer I will never forget.

All this talk of Mikey and my frustration of people trying to figure out who I am combined with the recent tensions I've been having at home between work difficulties, career direction difficulties, and school all balancing (and in my opinion secondary to) my home life I suppose has piqued EVEN MY WIFE'S INTEREST in the blog.

The problem is, even though I asked her to stay off the blog, she ignored my request and went on anyway.

I'm not sure this is a good thing, and this is certainly an UNINTENDED OUTCOME, the thanks to which I owe you, Mikey. Now because G-d made you think to call me Hershey rather than Zoe, I got annoyed and now my wife is one of you thus taking away my ability to be fully forthright in my diary entries for fear that I will get a lashback from the things I've written by those I love. This is why I shut down my first blog in its entirety; I had too many of my friends visiting and reading my personal blog and any time I wrote something about them (whether or not I named them), I'd get hate mail and hurt feelings from their misunderstandings of what I have written when the whole problem could have been averted by not reading my private stuff.

On the topic of my wife reading the blog, the problem is that I feel that any issues that need to be resolved between me and my wife should be resolved between me and my wife face-to-face, and not via a blog that she reads from time to time to take my temperature as to how I am feeling about things in the marriage or with the relationship. A blog should not be a crutch for human interactions, and I could easily see it being used that way.

*I AM NOT THE WEATHER OR THE YAHOO! NEWS, AND THERE IS NOTHING MORE INSULTING THAN CHECKING ON ME AS IF YOU'RE CHECKING THE WEATHER OR THE NEWS. I AM A HUMAN BEING TO BE TALKED TO AND TO BE ENJOYED AND CHERISHED, LEANED ON, AND ADMIRED. I AM SOMEONE TO GO TO FOR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT. I AM NOT A NEWS REPORT ON WHAT IS THE LATEST AND GREATEST ON YOUR OWN LIFE.*

Thus, IF you have disregarded my wishes that you not read the posts on this blog and you are reading this, then you too have violated my privacy and have invaded into an area into which you have not been invited. I feel hurt and very small that you have decided to disregard my wishes and read my inner thoughts when these inner thoughts are meant to be shared with you BY ME PERSONALLY where we discuss what is on our minds and we connect by sharing our thoughts and our feelings, not via a news feed.

If for some reason you have developed an interest in me and want to be more a part of my life than you have been, then yes, asking me to share with you PORTIONS of my blog posts is a great way to have me share many parts of myself with you. But some of the things I have written on this site are just simply too embarrassing or shameful to me because they expose a side of me that is out of control sometimes or lacking confidence or the kind of emotional strength I try to exude when I am around you, and I would feel violated if you knew those things about me which undermine what I try to show you as being who I am. The fact of the matter is that I don't share all my thoughts with you because we don't have that kind of relationship despite my attempts to develop that kind of trust with you. Another fact of the matter is that you don't know everything that is on my mind because half of the time you shut me up before I get a chance to even share what I wanted to share with you, hence much goes by the wayside.

But generally all you'll find on this blog are problems and issues. I don't have any motivation to write blog entries when my day has gone wonderful. I only write my diary entries when I have a need to reflect, hence this is not an accurate portrayal of the complete way I see things. My blog serves the same purpose of a diary -- to catch emotions and reactions -- and nothing more (except a blog has the perk of getting objective feedback in contrast to diaries which only gather dust on a shelf only to be burned years later when you're covering up things or values you ones thought or felt.)

Thus, unintended consequences. The point of discussing Mikey was never to have you come visit my blog. This was an unintended consequence; let's see what comes of it. Since our IM, you have shut down all communications to me and have not answered any of my correspondences to you, making me nervous that "here we go again" I have offended you, or that I have hurt you with my cold, sharp tongue which stumps out from the tongue of my hand writing each and every hurtful blog entry that threatens any rosy lalala vision of Eden that you might have, bringing to the surface the one unrecognized truth -- that one of our needs haven't been met and that one of us wants more from the relationship than the other has provided. Crashing windows, falling glass, welcome to Frumpterland.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree that this blog should be completely private. I can't imagine writing the way you do if people who knew me were reading it. Although I very much enjoy reading your blog (I believe you have a unique personality and perspective), I can understand if you decide to close it for privacy issues.

Ahuva said...

You know, reading the whole blog might help her understand you better. Someone has to take the first step towards the kind of open, sharing relationship that you want. You could, perhaps, ask her to discuss the things she reads on here with you in person.

But if she's showing an interest in you by getting curious about the things you're telling her (such as about Mikey)... isn't that a GOOD thing? Isn't any interest at all good?

Yeah, it'll have a censoring effect on what you write, but that's going to happen anyway as long as she has the blog address and your blog is public.

Abacaxi Mamao said...

I can understand that you are hurt, but nothing posted on an open, not-password-protected blog, should ever be considered private. There is always the chance that someone you know will find you out. I personally handle this by only blogging things that I would not mind terribly if my whole family and my employer read.

szarfer said...

As a loyal reader to your blog I would love to give you postive advice on how to fix your situation. There are 3 options.
1.Make your blog private so you wont have people you don't want reading your blog. The only problem is that you are a huge attention whore/drama queen and a private blog would limit the amount of potential fans.

2.Keep blogging in an open forum but deal with the fact that not everyone who logs onto your blog will be have positive comments for you, and there will be "internet detectives" who have nothing better to do than uncover your true identity (like me).

3.Go to your psychiatrist and ask him to prescribe you something that will help you chill out.

Anonymous said...

Hey there,

Another possibility that would allow you to maintain blogging but with additional security would be to get your own domain and use Word press (I personally love it): you can decide whether to make some entries password-protected (private except to certain readers) or not.

That's just my 2 cents, I'm sure you've given the possibility thought anyway.

Take care,

RM

Anonymous said...

By the way Mikey:

Your third suggestion was beyond rude...perhaps YOU should be the one seeking help!

RM

Zoe Strickman said...

Some good suggestions here...

Meir, I discussed it with my wife and apparently she didn't go past the page she read after she saw on IM that I was upset about it. We agreed that the blog is private space to be respected.

Ahuva, agreed.

Abacaxi, you apparently are uninformed about the different types of blogs.

Mikey, thank you for your comments; you made me smile. Maybe I'll take your advice and check out the clinic at YU.

Rae, good point about wordpress. I wish blogger had that feature. You do know though that the locked diary entries will be the *only* ones my wife will want to read, right? By the way, it's readers like you that help me to understand where my thinking has gone wrong. What third suggestion are you referring to??

-Zoe

Anonymous said...

If I were your wife and read this blog, I would not be more angry than I already was from what you did in real life...

I think you present yourself in a very negative light on this blog.

Many times, I thought (when reading your blog) how can someone write about himself that he is such an asshole?

Anonymous said...

Zoe, sholom bayis supersedes everything, don't be so open on your posts that everyone can see. If you wish, make a private blog, don't invite anyone to it and post your feelings. Your wife might read something and take it the wrong way, when its talking about you you can easily take it the wrong way.