Coming out as "a blogger"

Back in February, I remarked in a comment that:

If one day I find myself a boyfriend who doesn't know about [my blog], then working out if/how to tell him will be very tricky.

That produced an anonymous comment which asked:

Why tricky? unless a blogger has things to hide surely it's better to let their partner know?...or is this part of blogging, keeping things secret from the person they love while sharing with the rest of the world and fellow bloggers! As you have met other bloggers, if they were to meet your partner would you not have to lie to them how you know them, which is fundamentally being dishonest to your partner? Or again is this part of the thrill? Maybe some of your other readers/followers have thoughts on this?

Thinking a bit about this, anonymous blogging is quite an unusual activity. It's certainly something that's only become possible with the growth of the Internet. I also feel that it's enormously beneficial to a person in many ways, because it provides an outlet for all one's hopes and fears, as well as acting as a personal diary. It's certainly helped my personal development a lot since I started blogging over 4 years ago.

Blogging when all your friends know the web address of your blog is different, because you can't say exactly what you feel. You always have to edit and restrict yourself, because your audience knows who you are and knows the people involved. Blogging in that situation is still worthwhile of course, because it's still creative and it allows all your friends to keep up with what's going on in your life. But you couldn't write about any relationship or other personal problems.

For me, it's certainly not a question of wanting to hide things from any new boyfriend. Indeed, in one sense I was quite relieved when ex-boyfriend P found out about my blog, because it forced a solution to the question about if or when I should tell him. But of course, after he knew about the blog, writing about my relationship with him became more difficult, and the same will also be true if I tell any new boyfriend about this blog.

Although I kept the blog secret from ex-boyfriend S, I feel that I should tell any new boyfriend about the blog. I enjoy blogging, but it takes several hours each week to draft my postings and to respond to the emails that I get, so I shouldn't keep something that occupies that much time secret from him. The alternative, where he knows that I spend time online but it's not clear what I'm doing would be a bad idea, because it might undermine our relationship if he thinks that I spend that much time cruising!

One possibility would be to tell any new boyfriend that I'm a blogger, but then not tell him the web address. That could be justified on the grounds that reading my blog would be like reading my private diary. However, if he went looking for my blog I think he'd find it quite easily! Because I've been blogging for so long, I know that it comes up in the results for many types of Google searches these days.

It's ironic that I get a lot of "Dear GB" emails from guys who're having problems coming out as gay, because I can see parallels with the problems that I'm discussing here about coming out as a blogger! It wouldn't be such a big deal if I only had a small blog, but since I've now got over 650 posts it's not an insignificant part of my creative output. And of course, coming out as a blogger to a new boyfriend carries the risk that if he reads my blog, he may end up changing his mind about wanting to be my boyfriend.

Another possibility would be not to tell any new boyfriend about this blog and simply give up blogging. The problem with that is that I do enjoy blogging. Also, it's taken a while to build up my small readership, and it seems a shame to throw it all away.

Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts on this subject I'd be very interested to hear them!