{"id":1431,"date":"2011-03-22T13:13:06","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T07:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/blog\/?p=1431"},"modified":"2011-03-22T13:13:06","modified_gmt":"2011-03-22T07:43:06","slug":"personal-truths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/2011\/03\/personal-truths\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Truths"},"content":{"rendered":"

A good friend – Neeraj – posted another good entry on his blog, this time on the issues concerning how much we reveal of ourselves online, and what that means for relationships.\u00a0 Naturally, it made for an interesting read<\/a>.\u00a0 Here is a brief excerpt…<\/p>\n

A (Twitter) timeline that follows 150 people or more moves fast…\u00a0Sometimes I try to put those thoughts together into a coherent picture of the individual and I fail. It reminds me of a Salman Rushdie novel I\u2019d read where a man isn\u2019t allowed to see his prospective wife, but only parts of her through a veil. He sees the eyes, nose, hands, chin, feet and is smitten. When he sees her after the wedding, the whole is decidedly less than the sum of the parts. This is what worries me about online friendships.<\/p>\n

Over the past year that I\u2019ve spent on this medium (Twitter) I\u2019ve been fascinated by some of the people I follow. I think I know them, I think I relate but I don\u2019t know<\/em> if they\u2019ve really let me into the most private realms of their world. A privilege few extend and fewer deserve.<\/p>\n

Until I meet them I can only continue to build my edifice of thoughts, letting a chosen few enter in the hope they extend the same faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See what I mean?\u00a0 Thought-provoking, it certainly was.\u00a0 And, I found myself responding…<\/p>\n

My take is that it differs from person to person. If you\u2019re the sort who doesn\u2019t care much for \u201cwhat people may think\u201d and are true to your identity, you\u2019ll behave online how you really are<\/em>.\u00a0 But, others could just as easily create an elaborate exercise of projecting the kind of impression they want to project.\u00a0 To make matters worse, both types may post about only a limited range of topics, and almost certainly not include the thoughts they consider “personal” to them.<\/p>\n

So, I guess, I\u2019d agree with him for the most part \u2013 you can\u2019t really tell how someone truly is unless you\u2019ve met them. And, then too, you can only build up a picture from what they allow<\/em> themselves to reveal\u2026<\/p>\n

That said, every once in a while, you come across someone who you immediately connect with. Your wavelengths match, your ideas resonate and your discussions make sense\u2026 And, you\u2019re pretty sure that if they lived in your neighborhood, you\u2019d be good friends, and hang out as much as possible.<\/p>\n

And, somewhere deep down, you believe that it\u2019s not just a \u201cpersona\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s all true!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A good friend – Neeraj – posted another good entry on his blog, this time on the issues concerning how much we reveal of ourselves<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,10],"class_list":["post-1431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-life","tag-society"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}