What does it tell you about yesterday’s rainy meet-up with five fellow bloggers that my most blog-worthy picture shows a mannequin posing seductively in a Cambridge, MA sex shop window?
Reading blogs does feel a bit kinky at times. There’s always the tease that someone might let slip Something Revealing, that the mask we typically wear around both strangers and friends might at any moment fall off to reveal Secrets dark and hidden: an emotional wardrobe malfunction where something far more interesting than a pierced nipple might flash onto our screens, unexpected.
If we grow increasingly voyeuristic reading the blogged lives of Invisible People we’ve never met, how much more alluring is the thought of meeting these Mysterious Ones in the flesh. How do their real selves compare to the online personas they’ve crafted and we’ve greedily consumed? Will we at some point see the Author Unmasked, a real life Toto tugging to reveal the (hu)Man Behind the Curtain?
Of the five fellow bloggers I spent the day with yesterday, Leslee has already posted a written account of our meet-up and Abdul-Walid has already posted a photo. How appropriate that the six of us remain faceless in that photo: would you think me coy or kinky if I insisted that you can tell as much about our Real Selves by studying our shoes and stances as by looking into an unmasked eye?
Hoarded Ordinaries 
May 8, 2005 at 8:42 am
Fantastic photo!
And, you’re right, I did feel my “emotional wardrobe” threatening to bust-open at our meet-up. Disguise and reticence are so much easier from behind a keyboard. Once you’re hanging out with people face to face, revelations inevitably fly out from all the far corners of the psyche.
But as for Real Selves, I think there is only One, and that’s the One we, bloggers and non-bloggers alike, all share. That One is Dao.
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May 8, 2005 at 12:04 pm
I’ve always loved your shop window photos, but this is the best so far – what a great picture, especially considering the fact that I was there, too, staring in the side of the window, thinking my own thoughts aroused, shall we say, but my own lifetime of associations and experiences with sexuality and relationship – thoughts entirely different, I’m sure, from those of each of us in that group.
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May 8, 2005 at 12:18 pm
Great shot!!! And great post, too. I’m going to meet my first blogger next weekend, but I’m not too worried. My blog-self is so ME I just can’t hide it…
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May 8, 2005 at 12:27 pm
The sex life discussion (laupe-only, apparently) didn’t involve anything you might find in a Nancy Friday book, did it? You know– “look at the ass on that sheepdog” kind of stuff?
(The woof that can be woofed is not the eternal woof.)
Kevin
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May 8, 2005 at 3:38 pm
[audio src="http://dharma_path.blogspot.com/images/grroooowl.mp3" /]
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May 8, 2005 at 5:10 pm
Goodness.
I love how your words, and the string of following comments, have bestowed an intimacy on both the mannequin and her wares that could never be brought about by any amount (no matter how small!) of string and satin.
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May 8, 2005 at 5:10 pm
Good to hear everyone liked that picture. Since I took it with my pencam, I was surprised/delighted that it turned out. (and btw, that’s the closest you’ll get to seeing *me* in fishnet stockings here on HO.) 🙂
Abdul-Walid, it sounds like your Real Self believes in God after all…you just spell it funny!
Beth, I’d forgotten about that sex shop, which is odd since I passed it countless times when I lived at the ZC! Remembering all those times I passed it (and no, I never took any pictures much less went in!), I wonder what I was thinking then. Surely the “me” that walked by then didn’t share the same perspective as the “me” who took that picture now!
Panthergirl, I’m *sure* you & LG will have a *great* time when you meet up! I’ve met more than a dozen bloggers over the past year or so, and in every case I’ve been amazed at how these “virtual strangers” feel like old friends. If nothing else, it’s fun to see how people’s in-person mannerisms (voice, gestures, body language) matches what you’d imagined. Everyone who meets me, for instance, is surprised at how *short* I am: supposedly I “sound taller online”! 🙂
Kevin, without naming names *or* mentioning any specific sex acts done in any specific places, let me assure you that no animals were harmed (or loved) in the making of this blogpost! 🙂
John, yours is the first AUDIO comment I’ve ever received…I guess a growl is worth a thousand words!
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May 8, 2005 at 5:22 pm
Siona, I think part of the appeal/shock value of that picture is how it *doesn’t* match what folks have come to expect on HO. The *last* thing people expect to see on my site is a picture of a *person* showing lots of skin. So to see a sexy mannequin, I think, kind of shakes things up: it’s the blog equivalent of some sort of kinky role-playing game. And I think that sort of role-playing gives commenters permission to say things they normally wouldn’t…which is the exact appeal of dressing up in masks, right?
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May 9, 2005 at 1:20 am
It’s so strange to read about five people I’ve been in contact with for a year or more but have never met getting together in a place that I know well. Like ghosts wandering through my memory lanes. It seems all of you had a wonderful time!
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May 9, 2005 at 7:31 am
Thanks for pointing me to Abdul-Walid. Amazing writing.
Did you get to see the White Noise, White Light installation at MIT? We went last night in the rain/drizzle.
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May 9, 2005 at 9:59 am
Oh, how I wish I could have been with y’all! But I’m so glad you had a good time.
And I love your mannequin photo.
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May 9, 2005 at 12:42 pm
“How do their real selves compare to the online personas they’ve crafted and we’ve greedily consumed?”
I have often wondered that. I met my first blogger last week, and she was a lot more soft-spoken than I would have imagined. (OK, and shorter too, LOL.)
Great pic. I loved the one at A-W’s too… such an interesting meeting of great bloggers! I would’ve loved to have been a fly on that wall. 🙂
Karen
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May 9, 2005 at 4:00 pm
As a fly on the wall, you all seemed to be having an excellent time.
One could have imagined this crew simultaneously an affiliate of the Audubon Society, and the birds themselves–
as the group energy was one of avid curiosity, and the joy of flocking together…
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May 12, 2005 at 7:43 am
You’re absolutely right, Butuki. Meeting these bloggers in *Boston* was like having imaginary people come to life in a city of ghosts: a magical, wondrous thing. For me, this effect was heightened by the fact that several folks practiced or stayed overnight at the Cambridge Zen Center, where I used to live with my ex-husband. It was downright surreal to mingle with “virtual” friends in a place filled with so many memories & relational ghosts. I guess one way to get rid of old ghosts is to bring in new friends, and that’s what the meetup felt like to me.
Joan, Abdul-Walid is a treasure: I’m so glad you’ve “discovered” him! And no, we didn’t get to any museums other than the Gardner. As it turned out, we spent hours simple TALKING; on Saturday morning, for instance, our breakfast lingered well past lunchtime! So we didn’t see much of the city proper but had a grand time nonetheless!
Rachel, it would have been *great* to have you with us on Saturday…but the fact you couldn’t make it means we’ll have to do it again sometime! 🙂
Rurality, I’ve met about a dozen bloggers, and their in-person personas almost always matched (more or less) their screen selves. Still, there’s always an odd disconnect when you finally attach a voice & *body* to all those words & possibly pictures you’ve consumed over time. It’s funny to learn that someone is shorter than you thought or has a different voice than the one in your head. If you go into a meetup with flexible expectations, the surprises can be delightful!
Ji Hyang, I think your bird metaphor is exactly on target. We flocked & chattered like birds while scoping out everything & one another like birders. Perhaps that’s what I admire most in people: that sense of gregarious curiosity.
Thanks, everyone, for the great comments: this was such a fun experience!
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