Although I may aspire to the courageousness of an Alice Sebold in terms of my autobiographical writing, I have to admit, when it comes to blogging one’s life: it’s not without some dangers. Here’s a cautionary tale.

A little while back, out of the blue, I received an email from someone who had, more-or-less accidently, stumbled across this blog and become interested in me and my story. She had read a few of my entries, was favorably impressed, and wrote to tell me so. (I make reaching me ridiculously easy, of course, with the Contact TechnoMonk section I display in the right-hand column.)

Now, with the volume of email I encounter daily in both my professional and personal lives, I always have to think twice about responding to a stranger. Do I have the time? Who is this person?

Well, on this occasion, for whatever reason, I replied. I composed a very short note thanking her for her positive observations.

And then: she wrote back.

This went on, an email a day, for two or three days. During this time (I could tell from my blog statistics) she continued to devour much of what I had written about myself here.

The emails took on a tone of increasing familiarity. She started to believe she knew me. She mentioned my attractiveness.

Naturally, I became very curious, and I asked her about her personal situation, as the only thing I really knew was that she lived in another region of the U.S. She answered: married, with kids.

Still, we continued our correspondence…why, I don’t know. Except that, despite her personal life, it felt a lot like the “internet dating” contact I’ve had through match.com and chemistry.com. She supplied pictures.

I now realize I should not have engaged in this activity past the very early discovery-point of her marital status. But continue on I did, as she proceeded to reveal more and more of herself, including clear expressions of dissatisfaction with her life situation…mostly her marriage.

I’ll spare you most of the really intimate details here…except to say that at one point she suggested we have an affair.

Given my level of self-awareness and propensity to fall for unavailable women, respectfully, I declined.

She then indicated that she “was thinking about” leaving her husband: “what about that?”

She said she loved me. (Say what?)

I replied that I barely knew her, and that, even if I did, I was not interested in pursuing a relationship with someone so obviously on the rebound.

Given her intensity, and some of her bizarrely far-out ideas and statements, there came a point when I considered that I might be corresponding with a mentally-unstable individual. At the very least, her take on “reality” was certainly much different than mine.

And I became afraid…wondering how I’d gotten myself in so deeply, so unexpectedly, so rapidly.

It finally came down to a firmly-worded email from me that whatever she decided to do about her marriage and life situation, it could not be because of me, for me, or with me anywhere in the picture.

The conclusion of this whole episode came when she wrote back and said: “of course, you’re right.”

Correspondence then ceased and life returned to normal.

I need to say: you gotta be careful out there…

Soundtrack Suggestion

Went out last night, I didn’t stay late
’fore I got home I had nineteen dates

Well they took some honey from a tree
Dressed it up and they called it me

Everybody’s trying to be my baby…

(“Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby” – Beatles)