Blogging: Rebuilding Trust

I’m sorry, blog. I’m sorry that I lied to you about posting a mission statement, never followed through, and then disappeared for a month while you languished, alone and forsaken, wondering where I was and who I might be confiding in.

You see, I think I scared myself with that last post. Maybe I get scared too easily. It’s strange to be willing to watch you die an early death for fear of watching you die essentially the same death later. What’s my concern? Will the stakes be somehow higher? Am I scared I’ll get too attached?

I wanted to clarify my emotions about you, blog, so I did what I always do when I want to clarify my emotions about something: I filled out an online questionnaire/self-test. But since there don’t seem to be any online tests that measure one’s feelings about one’s blog, I had to improvise somewhat. Here’s the questionnaire – just substitute the word “blog” for the words “relationship”, “romantic partner”, and “partner” every time you see them.

  

 It’s pretty clear from these answers that I have mixed feelings about you, blog.  Indeed, my attachment style vis-a-vis you was characterized as “fearful-avoidant” – which sounds about right so far.

The “fearful-avoidant” individual, according to http://www.truthaboutdeception.com (- wait, what? what kind of site was I on?), is both anxious and dismissive about their relationship, and seeks both closeness and distance with their blog/romantic partner. In other words, I need you to be there for me, but back the f*ck off. 

Sorry.

The fine folks at truthaboutdeception.com had some advice, though, for guys like me. They say that the only way forward is to start making promises that I can keep – and that only when I start keeping these promises can the process of rebuilding trust begin. They also – quite coyly, I think – suggest that when rebuilding trust this way, it’s “best to under-promise and over-deliver”.

With that in mind, I promise to post something at some point. 

Something. Anything.

Hopefully soon.

Blogging: the Window Sign Experiment

Here in the land of romance, I’ve been unable to commit to a second date with this blog thing. My performance anxiety stems, I believe, from a general fear that blogs are nothing more than repositories for narcissism and douchebaggery. But maybe I just haven’t met the right blog yet. Or maybe I just have to accept my own inner narcissist/douchebag and love him for who he is.

Or maybe (and this is both more likely and less cynical) I fear blogs because the standard for blogging is actually set quite high, and I am concerned that my own uninteresting life couldn’t possibly generate a blog as visit-worthy as say, Allie Brosh’s or Kanye West’s (r.i.p). And so I sit, avoiding the potential for failure that comes with giving something the ol’ college try. And in the process, I have far less to write about, as sitting and being – while a fully worthwhile pursuit in and of itself, I believe (and Jason Schwartzman thinks so too) – does not an interesting blog make.

But what if an interesting life doesn’t make an interesting blog? What if it’s the other way around? What if the act of blogging actually impels the blogger to greater and more interesting ideas and pursuits? Take the timely, if tangential, example of Torontonian Jason Holburn, pictured here:

(picture stolen from the Globe and Mail)

Holburn was recently featured in the Globe and Mail for his self-imposed challenge of going as long as he can without consuming refined sugar. What’s interesting to me, as someone who hopes to blog about all the interesting things I am currently not doing in Paris, isn’t the nature of his sugar challenge, but the fact that he is broadcasting his pursuit via a numerical window sign, indicating the number of days he’s succeeded. A short excerpt from Holburn’s interview with Globe writer Affan Chowdry should explain what I mean:

Chowdry: What is the effect of the sign in your window?

Holburn: …It really has changed my life in a dramatic way. It’s a sense of accountability. I don’t have a clue who’s looking at my window but I assume somebody out there is. Even if they’re not, it’s a big psychological impetus for me. Easily, easily, at least 100 – probably at least 300 times – I’ve said no to a doughnut, a slice of pie, or a fruit juice because I really do not want to come home and reset my window to zero. It’s been an incredible, massive life-changer.

What Holburn seems to suggest here is that the sign precedes the challenge, that the broadcasting creates the doing. Without the window sign, Holburn would be riding a sugar high from the candy store all the way home. But with the window sign, Holburn is approaching his goal of 1000 days without a single pixie stick.

What I’m hoping is that blogging will work the same way for me. I avoid failure like a champ, and am king of finding excuses for not attempting the things that I think I would like to do. Maybe with a blog, and the sense of accountability that comes with an (imagined) audience, I will do a little better.

To that end, I’ll be coming up with a bit of a mission statement for the next post, in order to broadcast my hopes for life in Paris and bind me to a follow-through.

If found, please return to the 11th.

So I live in Paris now. The 11th Arrondissement, to be specific. It looks like this:

With a bit wider lens, here it is in context:

I

See that glowing shard labelled “11e”? The one just to the right of the word “Paris”? That’s us! Me, my wife, and 160,000 neighbourly individuals who I am CERTAIN are just dying to lend me some sugar.

Before we go any further, though, a clarification: Lest you think I’m trying to edify you, fear not! All of this is purely for my benefit. Along with moving to a new city comes a whole new set of anxieties (and plenty of old ones) to try to stifle, principal among which is the fear of getting lost. Now, I fancy myself a fairly adept urban navigator, but the above map confirms Paris’s reputation as a formidable foe to any aspiring “flâneur” who hopes to find his way back home.

To start, then, I’m going to stick to the 11th, which is big, dense, and winding enough to get me plenty lost as is. Feel free to follow along as I try to map out the neighbourhood’s more interesting sites and pluck up the courage to move beyond it’s borders. And if you find a poor Canadian boy somewhere along the Seine or the Périphérique, please send him back where he belongs. I’ll write it on my hand or something.

This one goes to 11.