Orwell

Some months ago, probably around February or March, I noted that someone had landed on the Shane blog having used the search term ‘Shane Wexford’. Now, whilst this someone may simply have been an earlier visitor, or, an innocent teenager seeking an alternative yet equally handsome (albeit Irish) Shane who they’d met during a winter break in Cyprus, it seemed unlikely. This view was compounded as it was also noted - by Statcounter - that the searcher was located in not-so-big Midlands City. This raised suspicions that the Shane Wexford blog – which Emma had said she wasn’t going to read – had been searched for by she. At this time, precious few of the intimate circle had been informed of the Shane blog. So, one evening, whilst chatting on the phone, and kind of out of nowhere, I ventured:

Shane: So what did you think of the blog?
Emma: (pause, surprised) What?
Shane: The blog - you searched for it yeah? And read it. On Monday evening, just after 8 o’clock? (In retrospect, this may have sounded a bit mentalist)
Emma: No. I haven’t seen your blog.
Shane: Oh. It’s just that someone in Midlands City searched for it then and spent about half an hour reading it.
Emma: Well it wasn’t me.
Shane: Oh, right. It’s just that you’re the only person over there who I’ve mentioned it to.
Emma: Well it wasn’t me.
Shane: Any ideas of who it might have been then?
Emma: (pause) No.

I believed her. And I felt like 7000 different kinds of tit for boldly assuming that she’d read it. I pursued this no further, assuming that the reader was probably Emma’s younger sister (having heard of my blogging through Emma). Until last Sunday that is. At the dinner table at Emma’s parents house:

Emma: Will you blog about this weekend?
Shane: No, I don’t think so. I blogged about Crosby and Blackpool in the past (we’d ventured to each last weekend).
Emma: Oh – that’s a shame, it’s been a good one.
Shane: Mm. But there’s other stuff that I can draw upon.
(Enter Emma’s Mum – having heard none of our brief conversation)
E’s Mum: What’s that?
Emma: I was just askin’ if he was going to blog about this weekend, but he’s not.
E’s Mum: Oh, right. Have you ever looked at the blog?
Emma: No, though he did once accuse me of searching for it behind his back. Didn’t you?
Shane: Yeah.
E’s Mum: (pause) No, it was probably me.
Emma: Mum! You didn’t!
E’s Mum: I did – and you can get to view what other people have been using the machine upstairs to look at. It uses a ‘cache’ or something.
Emma: You didn’t! Oh my go-! (To me) She is awful. She’s done that before.
E’s Mum: I once found some pictures of… porn! - that someone had been looking at during the day.
Shane: Well it wasn’t me!
Emma: You didn’t!
E’s Mum: I did. It was quite a while ago.
Emma: Oh go-! So who was it?
E’s Mum: You’ll never guess.
Emma: Not Dad (winces)?
E’s Mum: Nooooo. (Laughs) He said just what Shane just said.
Emma: So?
E’s Mum: I knew it had been through the day, but I knew that me and your Dad would have been at work. So I checked my diary cos I was sure we’d had someone staying here at the time, and we did!
Emma: Who?
E’s Mum: Rosie! (a close friend of Emma)
Emma: Nooooooo!
E’s Mum: Yep. But, I mean, she was probably just curious or something.
Emma: But why would she?
(Emma is shocked, whilst I am inwardly laughing)
E’s Mum: She was young.

Of course what we’d done here was skip over Emma’s Mum’s quiet researching and reading of Shane Wexford. She did look awkward when she’d ‘fessed up – just prior to shifting our focus. To say that it felt spooky that she’d been… snooping – and in this case that is the word – would be an understatement. With Emma’s awareness of her Mum’s ‘interest’ in others’ affairs, I find it hard to imagine that this searching really would have come as a surprise.

While this feels odd, I am aware of this being part-related to the pseudonymification and the not-entirely-comfortable-in-doing the-personal-exposé-style-of-blogging that comes so naturally to many (but certainly not all). Thus, I am left pondering: Should this being 'checked-out' feel odd? If so why so, if not why not. And given that, as I say, it does feel odd, why does it feel so.

It was a strange situation.