Shy

I haven't written a blog, in, uh, forever....hope I remember how. Being sick + working overtime = 0 time to write. Anything.

So, I've spent the last several days blowing my nose and making smoothies. NOT at the same time. That would be gross. Although I did have to the insanely intense urge to cough as I was making a wrap in front of a customer. I've never made a wrap that fast, I basically threw it at her so I could run to the back room and let loose. But I'm getting off track.

I'm relatively new to the blogging, creating an on-line presence thing. And so far, I haven't had any trouble. Well, with the technical side of it. I'm young, and I'm pretty sure understanding technology is a requirement for my generation. But with the whole social side? The entire point of having a blog and twitter and facebook and commenting on writing forums? Yeah, I'm struggling. Because, for some weird reason, when I get on-line, I'm SHY!

There. I said it. I'm shy. Whew, it's a relief to finally admit it!

I'm shy to write comments on people's blogs, or comment on forums, or send friend requests. I hope this doesn't sound crazy. Being on-line and therefore basically anonymous should make it easier to talk to strangers, right? Not for me. They can't see me, can't hear me, don't know where I am or what I'm doing. I could be writing this in my underwear eating cheetos dipped in chocolate syrup (I'm not, btw. Or maybe I am?) But that's the problem. I'm a total stranger. I'm so afraid to leave a comment and have the other person go "Who is the hell is this? And why are they writing this?"

I hate updating my Twitter. How full of myself does it make me to think that someone actually cares what I'm doing? I update my facebook status, but that's because, well, facebook is the one place I actually feel secure in my on-line persona. I'm not DaniSue, the YA writer/blogger. I'm Danielle, the struggling college grad. All my friends on facebook know me as that. And they are my close friends (for the most part) and I know they like reading my status updates and looking at my pictures and duh, they are in a lot of them.

Oh jeez, this does make me sound crazy. Because the rational part of my brain knows that everyone else who is blogging is doing so because they want people to read their thoughts and comment on them. They want to make connections and network and gain knowledge from each other. If they didn't, they wouldn't be writing a blog. And I want people to read my blog and enjoy it and leave me comments too. But the self-conscious, self-esteem gnawing monster in my brain says "No one cares what you have to say. What do you know?" and then it laughs maniacally. So when I want to leave a comment on a blog I have to yell "Shut up!" before I press the "post a comment" button. Then I have to repeat that the person who wrote the blog wants to know what I thought about it. And then after I fill out that goofy letter security thing, I say "ha!". Beat you this time you shy- awkward-left-over-from-my-teens insecurity monster.