A fatal flaw?

Quote of the day, from a tv commercial for some beer or other: "She's got hungry eyes, and I'm an all-you-can-eat buffet."

Picture of the day: me in Halloween costume, aged about 4, after my mother had slaved on it for weeks. As my father is fond of saying, I was cute in those days.


Today, the drawbacks of personal blogging were brought home to me, randomly and for no discernible reason.

Blogging is like therapy in a way. You can talk about all the stuff that's pissing you off, that's happened to you during your day, that's in your head and you can't tell anyone face to face, or that's just occurred to you and you need to talk about. However, there the distinction ends.

Although there is no doubt that it is therapeutic, it's also kind of - well, for want of a better word, empty. Most of the time you are asking rhetorical questions, since most of what's in your head is pretty unanswerable by those who read your blog. Whereas the therapist would be able to supply you with some answers, or at least point you in the right direction to find answers yourself, the blog just kind of sits there and reminds you of all the problems you've had over however long you've blogged for. Many of which are still problems, or have changed in form slightly and still manage to piss you off.

Another problem, and one that is paradoxical in that it is also an advantage, is that people read your blog. You can't say too much about friends and family on your blog if any of them are going to read it and take offence, or if there are things they don't know about you which you need to talk about; at the same time a blog where you could be brutally truthful but where no-one read your comments would be rather pointless. You want people to respond to what you write, but since you can rarely write exactly what you want to, you don't get the responses you wish for. Again, incomplete therapy. People can always e-mail you if they want to respond to you in private, but then it turns into this whole other side issue which you have to blog about later to fill everyone else in on.

The act of blogging it is in itself addictive and cathartic, but sometimes you just can't help wishing that you could say what you wanted to, or that someone would come up with the answers to all your questions. Does blog therapy exist? Should I start it? Trawl through the 'Next blogs' online, leaving psychologist-type comments as I go? Would people think that I was taking the piss, or would it actually help anyone? It could be the next big dot com business. And solve my job problems........