how close is close?

last night i was talking to a man at the bar-- we'll call him rich, since that is his name. while he was describing a part of his daily routine he used the phrase "on my blog". what is that you say, rich? your blog? what followed was a long conversation about which blog service we use (both blogger) and how we feel about other options like xanga and myspace, etc. we like blogger for this reason, we don't like myspace for these reasons....blah blah blah. then came the obvious question. what is your blog address? i uttered this question. rich stared at me. i stared back knowlingly. this is such an odd situation. i blog, he blogs, we're both totally into it, we are both reasonably confident and intelligent people, but neither of us is willing to divulge an address. weird, i know, since this is a public forum and any person in the world with an internet connection can peruse any and all of our blogs. but we can't share them with the people we know. at least i can't. and apparently neither can rich.
this led us into a conversation about why it is impossible to let someone in to both our physical world and our virtual persona. then rich said, "you know what my blog entry is going to be tonight? how close is close?" and that is the question. people i only kind of knew 8 years ago are aware of and regular visitors to second impression. people i have known since they were characters in the childhood dramas i re-create here are regular visitors. two friends with whom i spend time regularly and who are totally willing to never talk about reading this crap are regulars. so the question is: who is not allowed to know about virtual shelly? or virtual rich? or virtual sara? (which is really a poor example since sara shares the midwestern position with everyone). the answer to that question, for this girl, is: anyone with whom i will have to deal on a regular basis who is also someone who would be meeting virtual shelly before physical shelly. if stories about how ridiculously obsessive i was as a child precede information like "where did you grow up?" or "where did you go to college?" the logical deduction would have to be: "i don't want anything to do with this person." however, if physical shelly has been firmly established and there has not already been an "i don't want anything to do with this person" assessment, then perhaps the second impression risk can be taken. but not before. i learned from rich last night that "i am a good person and i like you and i am interested in your life and your writing" are not sufficient grounds for disclosure. in fact, as i pondered whether or not to venture into virtual intimacy, it occurred to me that liking someone and thinking that they are a person worthy of respect and attention is exactly the perfect reason to never ever share the ramblings of second impression. unless you count the hundreds of millions of people who have access to it. that's different.