Lurk \Lûrk\ (v) To exist unobserved or unsuspected. To read but not contribute to the discussion in a newsgroup, chat room, or other online forum.
One of these lurkers approached me today when I was having a lunch pause in the HF Library Café. Having read this blog since my Studblogg-days, she knew an awful lot about me, my house, my job and so on. All I knew at first was that a stranger came talking to me while I had bread crumbs stuck in my teeth. I got rid of the bread crumbs and got to know some more about this cute girl. Hardly as much as she knows about me, but enough to know that I easily could talk to her again sometime, and that she definitely won’t harm me in the future(!).
You see my Mom keeps giving me these signals. It seems she wants me to close this blog down. Or at least password protect it. This easter she gave me a criminal novel about this innocent little girl that had fun surfing the Internet and then all of a sudden she was dead. Probably something more happened in between the surfing and the dead girl, and some cool detective most definitely must have found the solution afterwards, but I haven’t actually read the book. I judged it by its cover. And by my Mom’s serious face as she gave it to me. Happy birthday, sort of…
Yes, indeed, there are freaks out there. I’ve talked about them before[N]. I might be naive, but I just refuse to believe that it’s better to shut up, than to be a part of this.
It takes some courage to walk up to strangers like the lurking girl did. I rarely dare to, but I want to get better at it. But I guess blogging has some similarities to it anyway (though blogging might also be about exhibitionism). I’m thinking about openness and about sharing. And those are good things.