Greetings, online lookers and internet interlopers.
This is Cyber Alan.
I’m the one who’s been writing and corresponding and showing off pictures of my ass for almost seventeen years now. It’s a rather long time, especially in the mercurial slipperiness of the world-wide web, and the only way I’ve managed to survive and keep doing this is by crafting this alter-version of myself. I’m not exceptional in that way. Most of us put a very different image forth with the Veil of Valor afforded by the anonymity and distance of our online entities. Different from who we are in everyday life. Heightened. Elevated. Extreme.
Our social media selves are what we most want to be, most of the time. This blog functions as such too. It’s the one place where I can be glamorous, witty, funny, elegant, fashionable and, with the right lighting and angles, give the effect of being semi-attractive. This is the closest I can get to perfection, even while pretending to extol my imperfections. That becomes a trap sometimes, too, such as the past couple of weeks when a substantial portion of my life has come under duress, if not fallen apart altogether. But most people had no idea, because I didn’t really put it all up here for inquiring minds to dissect and send their queries. Life is difficult enough when working things out, especially when the things you’re working out go back four decades and threaten the entire foundation of everything you thought you knew. I have therapy to thank for that, and I have faith that the end result will be a healthier and happier version of myself that is a little more authentic and at peace with things than the cyber version you see before you.
Perhaps I’ll even let you in behind the curtain.
For now, the train trundles along on a snowy Cyber Monday…
