The end of all blogs

Many blogs seem to be coming to an end.

THE single guy has called it quits over at Sex, Sports and the Single Guy. He is no longer single (he has a girlfriend) and he stopped writing about sex a while ago (much to my relief) and I was never that interested in his sports writing (sorry). But his was one of the rare blogs about relationships written by a man. I respect his efforts to write about his feelings. Women are socialized to have access to our feelings and that makes it easier for us to express ourselves in writing. So, while THE single guy's blog wasn't always the best written (sorry), it was unfailing honest and interesting. If he needs to stop, he needs to stop, and I wouldn't try to talk him out of it—but the problem seemed to be that his "secret" blog might not have remained secret for much longer.

Several months ago, another male blogger (Sethro) gave up the ghost when his intimate revelations threatened his relationship. (He told his girlfriend about his blog and she poked around all the sites he linked to—it was pretty funny.) He just stopped posting—no warning, nada. That made me sad.

Our good friend Velvet has recently revealed that she has started a secret blog because her personal life was too connected to her "main" blog. (Or something like that; I don't have the inside scoop.) I will miss her intimate stories.

My dear internet friend, Serially Single finally decided to end her blog. She is not comfortable sharing it with her significant other and, because she doesn't think she should keep secrets from him, she decided that the blog can no longer exist (don't do it, babe!). It's gone. What remains is a goodbye post and no archives.

Months and months ago, Breakup Babe (who is soon to publish a book of that same name) took down her archives and swore not to blog about relationships again. So far, she is true to her word.

And Larissa, whose theme was a countdown to losing her virginity, stopped posting about a month ago. She had a great gimmick—until she went around meeting all of her readers and getting set up on dates—and then found it terribly awkward. Luckily, she is continuing her writing in a different venue, but it's no longer a personal revelation.

What about my sweet, crazy Jo? Lord, I might miss her more than all the rest. Her writing was so raw, so visceral it made me feel as though I knew her. She started writing somewhere else and I hope I'll stumble across it someday.

And there are more that I won't mention....

Warning: blogging may be harmful to your mental health.

Is this just the natural life course of blogs? We start, enthusiastic and naïve, get in over our heads and then STOP? Obviously, some blogs have been around for several years—but how many of those delve into the personal lives of their writers? I've noticed that some that start out extremely revelatory ease off on the personal stuff after a while. This Fish comes to mind—but her archives are still there so you can go all the way back to the beginning for some great, heart wrenching romantic drama. Her cover was blown, of course, so she is not as comfortable telling all anymore.

Of course, I have no intention of ending the blog. If I got a paid writing gig, I might slow down, due to lack of time and energy, but really stopping for good? I don't know what would cause that to happen.

Writing about relationships is tricky. Trickier than I imagined when I started. Yet, I think if I get another boyfriend (it is feeling more like "if" these days than "when," poor me, boo-fucking-hoo, whatever), I'm pretty confident that I'll blog through the whole damn thing.

But will I do it with as much abandon as with the other two (yes there were two!) boyfriends I wrote about? The answer to that, sadly, is no. You, as readers will not suffer too much because I will be just as revelatory about my own feelings. However, I will be more careful to obscure facts about any fellow I meet who has boyfriend potential.

Also, knowing that I will eventually reveal the blog to said potential boyfriend, I will make sure to write only what I would feel comfortable with him reading (heh, good luck with that). It shouldn't be too hard since I'm terrible at keeping secrets anyway (oh, easy for me to say now!).

However, there is one category of man about whom I will never, ever write in any detail on the blog. That is the man I meet because he reads my blog.

I am open to meeting people (men and women) through the blog. In fact, if you have some nice man who you think would be perfect for me, please feel free to set me up with him (but DON'T show him the blog first—how embarrassing!). If you are a nice man who thinks you would be perfect for me...well, try not to come on too strong, ok?

But these men will not be written about. Period. And you, dear readers, will not suffer because you won't even know you were missing anything until it's long over. And, if I actually get a boyfriend this way, I promise to tell about it.

How could I keep a secret from you?

Grateful for: past and present bloggers.

Drop me a line.