Online Dating Magazine > Columns > Dating with Disabilities > Blogging About Life

Dating with Disabilities
by Melissa Blake

Blogging About Life
(and Crush Boy)

For those of you who have been following this column, here’s a word of advice: More people read your blog than you could ever imagine.

I used to think people really didn’t care or were all that interested in what I had to say (save for my friends and family, of course). But that all changed in the span of two months, thanks to my personal blog (and FYI, the term personal is becoming a misnomer in this digital, technological booming revolution we’re living through.

But I digress. Instead, let's do a CSI-style review of the evidence:

2. I also wrote about my awkward and hilariously me interactions with him.

3. I freaked out when I found out that he reads my blog when he sent me an email saying in not so many words that he knew he was Crush Boy.

4. I obsessed and analyzed and obsessed again, and eventually sent him a reply.

I thought it would end there. I should have let it end there. I should have just made light of the whole awkward situation and tried to make it at least a bit less awkward. My little secret was out, he - and the world - knew. He never replied to my email, and I thought I was OK with that at first. At first is the key word here. As the weeks rolled by, I, again, started to obsess (I know, there's a pattern forming here). Why didn't he write back? Was he utterly freaked out and disgusted by me that he'd passed out and sank into a coma? Was the fact that I could actually have feelings for him be as unimaginable to him as I feared they might? I'm reminder of one of my favorite quotes from a Michelle Branch song (Find Your Way Back on her Hotel Paper CD):

What if I said what I was thinking?
What if that says too much?

I opened my big mouth - well, more like opened my big blog – and what it was turned out to be too much But then again, a part of me wasn't sorry I'd disclosed my feelings. Actually, part of me was even a little proud, as in "Finally, after so many years, I don't care if he finds out." It felt quite liberating, actually.

So what did I do next? Yup. I sent him YET ANOTHER email following up on my previous email. I wrote:

Hey there,

I wanted to write and just sort of clear the air about my blog. I'm glad you like it, and I hope you'll continue reading. I honestly didn't mean for you to be caught off guard by anything you read on there; that was never my intention. I'm really sorry if things came across that way. I just don't want anything to be weird between us, if that makes any sort of sense.

Anyway, just wanted to put that out there. Hope you have a good week and let me know how you're doing!

Best,
Melissa :)

Leave it to me to say the right thing at the wrong time, the wrong thing at the right time and most often, absolutely nothing at all. He wrote back a few days later and had this to say that my blog reflected my personality.

I didn't know how to take that -- what does that even mean? Was he letting me down easy with the "You've got a great personality" speech? Oh no! Or was he implying that my personality is a creepster, stalker girl who will one day find herself on America's Most Wanted for using a telescope to peak into a guy's place because he said he wouldn't be home, but something told her he was lying and she wanted to "catch" him in the act?

The moral: I suppose I'm still as confused as I was two months ago. And of course I'm trying to avoid our real-time encounters, which I'm sure would begin with me saying "So about what I said..."

I'm just hopeless, aren't I? I'm THAT girl, and I always vowed I'd NEVER be her. But I am.

I even thought I was getting better. Until, that is, I realized that he could easily find this column too. Oh, shoot. Or oh, well?

Dating with Disabilities is published every Tuesday by Online Dating Magazine columnist Melissa Blake. Melissa is a freelance writer and columnist. Her work has been featured in Redbook, Pregnancy magazine and the Chicago Tribune. She can be reached at mellow1422@aol.com..

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