The BetsyG-Spot

By BetsyG

As you read these columns about my past relationships, you may wonder: How can I in good conscience write about these men? And what kind of idiot would date a writer like me?

As to the first question, hard as it may be to believe, my conscience is clear. I’m not hurting anyone.

How is that possible, when, for example, I’ve written about Mike (the alcoholic liar) in such a revealing way? Wouldn’t that hurt him or damage his reputation?

Sure it would, if he had any clue this site existed or if anyone who read it knew who he was. None of my friends met him, no one knows his last name, and surely the name Mike is sufficiently generic that he is not identifiable except in the incredibly unlikely event that someone who knows him reads my columns, recognizes his personal situation, and realizes I’m talking about him. Of course, if that happened, that person would already know those things about Mike, wouldn’t they?

What about poor Jonathan, whose intelligence I have suggested was not up to my usual standard? There’s no chance he’d read this, even if he had the address. He was rereading a children’s book when I met him (a fact that’s probably more embarrassing for me than it is for him); I doubt he’s scouring the Internet for reading material. We don’t have friends in common, so I can’t harm him. If I had any doubt about that, I wouldn’t be doing this.

Gary is a different case, because he would read this if he knew about it. On the other hand, I don’t think he would care what I wrote—he was completely supportive of my column about our relationship that was published in the Boston Globe. Most importantly, I haven’t written anything that would embarrass him. I think he’d enjoy my site, but I have a teeny bit of reluctance about sharing it with him because I’m afraid I’d be too careful writing about him if I knew he was reading. Still, I might tell him about it. I could.

Bob, on the other hand, knows about my site; I started seeing him just as it was launching. I promised I wouldn’t write about anything that was private between us and I wouldn’t embarrass him. One time, I wanted to run a piece by him before I published it, but he told me to “roll with it” when he couldn’t get to it in time. He trusted me (I think, but I could never really know with him), and I don’t believe that trust was misplaced. If anything, I was hampered by the fact that I knew he was reading. Besides, we do have mutual friends; how could I face them if I hurt or embarrassed him? More to the point, how I could I face myself?

Despite these assurances, you have to wonder who would be stupid enough to date me. I can’t fault Gary, because I wasn’t writing anything like this when I was seeing him. Both Mike and Jonathan, though, were happily oblivious to the notion that they might be subjects of future pieces, even though I dated both of them after my essays were published in the Globe.

Bob was the only one smart enough to at least hesitate before going out with me. After we started dating, we had a good laugh about it. Who would date a writer without some reassurance he wouldn’t end up with his head on a stick? We got a bigger laugh at the stupidity of breaking up with a writer badly, as Mike did. Talk about risk! So it was all the more shocking when Bob broke up with me badly. It has been a battle of conscience not to capitalize on that. It goes against my instincts as a writer not to say everything I’d want to say, but it goes against my goddamn Pinocchio conscience to let loose as I might like to.

On the other hand, I write about what interests me and what I think will interest others. Using my writing as a weapon is not appealing, unless it’s mano a mano, and not in a public forum.

Ultimately, it makes sense to live by the golden rule, and not just because it’s the nice thing to do. If I did do bad things unto others with my writing, I can only imagine, in this world of 7 million blogs, what others would do unto me.