Pigeon-holing the stereotype

[Update: Not sure where all this came from, kinda blindsided me to be honest]

I’m sure most of you will now have read Lyle’s post at Troubled Diva. My only direct comment about it is quite simply that, unless the person writing is quite open about their lifestyle (Peter and Pinky as two examples) I generally don’t tend to think about their sexual preference. Yes I have the same initial reaction to personal information that everyone else in the world does (it’s how we handle that initial reaction that designates us as homophobic, rascist etc etc), but… hmm I had a point here I’m sure…

What HAS struck me is something else Lyle mentions, the “sense of remove” that guest blogging has given him, and I would agree. It is identical to finding yourself, all of a sudden, in a different social environment where you very quickly realise that you can act differently if you want to, and can create a persona of yourself that may not match who you really are.

Having had a personal website for over 4 years, I’m presuming that a lot of my ‘readers’ (yup all 10 of you) have a fixed image of who I am, what makes me tick, and my views on some major topics. Whilst those self same readers will quickly admit that they don’t ‘know’ me fully (they are intelligent enough not to make that assumption… yes you are!), they will have an ‘image’ of me which they will apply to everything I write or comment on.

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