Pretending to be better or worse

Sometime during the first couple of years of this blog, I remember reading a post by some other blogger who belonged to the same little community, where we all read and commented on each other's blogs. He wrote (or maybe it was "she," I forget), "It seems like some of the bloggers that I read are pretending online to be better people than they are in real life. And then it seems like there are others who actively pretend to be worse than they are in real life!"

I've always wondered if I belonged in either list. Maybe not, of course. It might be pure self-centeredness for me ever to imagine that I did. But if I were on one of the lists, which one?

I hope that other blogger had me slated for the second list. Because I know that I spend a lot of time in this blog talking about my weaknesses and failures. And yet, despite that, my neighbors are still wonderfully kind and I still have a couple of friends who think well of me—Debbie and Marie, for sure, but probably others too if I set my mind to it.

Why do I focus on my weaknesses and failures? Those are the things I need to process, if I am to live with them. Those are the things I have to learn from, if I am ever to improve. And those are the things that I don't discuss with other people, so I have to discuss them anonymously with you. I'd have a lot of trouble discussing these things viva voce in real life, so I have to talk about them somewhere. And this is the place.

Or maybe it's all just punishment for my sins, like I discuss here. That's always a possibility.