If I put myself out there, could love find me, even though I had never been able to find it?
Turning to the internets to find one's life partner by opening up to complete strangers and sharing with them what it meant to be 35, female and still on the shelf despite being a thoroughly decent and kind soul was an unusual approach, risky and probably a little bonkers but geography made me do it.
Living on an island in the middle of the Atlantic for years didn't exactly make for a buzzing social life. Being way too self-effacing and inconspicuous as a rule - with middling to acute reclusive tendencies coupled with an irrepressible need to connect - I started blogging to try and find my own voice again, the voice behind the professional semi-automatic editorial habits, the voice that had gone missing while I tried too hard to become more Islandish than the Islanders, desperate to fit in.
Despite my best efforts, I remained the oddball so I started thinking about alternative ways of reaching out to others. I had no great ambitions: just the one person would do. Because there had to be at least one person out there who would understand why I was letting it all hang out on the internets and stumbling around for answers.
I never had any plans to become one of the many online megalomaniacs who create their own cult - I am just a human being, with a big heart and a need to love and be loved, which makes me just like you and everyone else quite probably.
And yet, everyone can be a brand and a product nowadays.
The prolific internets have spawned zillions of brash loudmouths who peddle their fabulousness via social media outlets 24/7, being and doing just so they can Facebook, tweet or instant message it for others to Digg, Stumble Upon, like, fave or RT it, however uninteresting "it" might be.
As a result, being you online or offline - warts and all - takes more courage and self-assurance than ever before, and comes with the niggling doubt that you may not be good enough compared to the wildly successful and exciting lives of others, as reported by the very same. Most of us end up consuming make-believe, avidly and indiscriminately, and playing a part. Style has become substance, with carefully crafted charlatanry enabling amateurs to proclaim themselves experts and, because they are as persistent as cockroaches, gather a following of similarly attention-hungry sheep.
We're witnessing the advent of appearances, the mass culling of ordinariness and the demise of authenticity.
Because we're much too busy pandering to our own insecurities to be real anymore.
The promise I made back when I started the blog is still valid: I won't over-egg the pudding because I value facts way too much to serve up fiction.
And if all else fails, The Ideal Wife Giveaway is a nifty name for a blog, isn't it?
Turning to the internets to find one's life partner by opening up to complete strangers and sharing with them what it meant to be 35, female and still on the shelf despite being a thoroughly decent and kind soul was an unusual approach, risky and probably a little bonkers but geography made me do it.
Living on an island in the middle of the Atlantic for years didn't exactly make for a buzzing social life. Being way too self-effacing and inconspicuous as a rule - with middling to acute reclusive tendencies coupled with an irrepressible need to connect - I started blogging to try and find my own voice again, the voice behind the professional semi-automatic editorial habits, the voice that had gone missing while I tried too hard to become more Islandish than the Islanders, desperate to fit in.
Despite my best efforts, I remained the oddball so I started thinking about alternative ways of reaching out to others. I had no great ambitions: just the one person would do. Because there had to be at least one person out there who would understand why I was letting it all hang out on the internets and stumbling around for answers.
I never had any plans to become one of the many online megalomaniacs who create their own cult - I am just a human being, with a big heart and a need to love and be loved, which makes me just like you and everyone else quite probably.
And yet, everyone can be a brand and a product nowadays.
The prolific internets have spawned zillions of brash loudmouths who peddle their fabulousness via social media outlets 24/7, being and doing just so they can Facebook, tweet or instant message it for others to Digg, Stumble Upon, like, fave or RT it, however uninteresting "it" might be.
As a result, being you online or offline - warts and all - takes more courage and self-assurance than ever before, and comes with the niggling doubt that you may not be good enough compared to the wildly successful and exciting lives of others, as reported by the very same. Most of us end up consuming make-believe, avidly and indiscriminately, and playing a part. Style has become substance, with carefully crafted charlatanry enabling amateurs to proclaim themselves experts and, because they are as persistent as cockroaches, gather a following of similarly attention-hungry sheep.
We're witnessing the advent of appearances, the mass culling of ordinariness and the demise of authenticity.
Because we're much too busy pandering to our own insecurities to be real anymore.
The promise I made back when I started the blog is still valid: I won't over-egg the pudding because I value facts way too much to serve up fiction.
And if all else fails, The Ideal Wife Giveaway is a nifty name for a blog, isn't it?
