BY Lux Alptraum
November 19, 2007
1,301 views
5 Comments

If you have a blog — well, a personal blog, that is — and you have a relationship, chances are that your relationship is going to find its way into said blog. Maybe just in fragments, or heavily edited anecdotes, or maybe even in straight up, unfiltered glances directly into your personal life. Or hey: maybe you’ll even make an entire blog devoted to your relationship, co-edited with your partner.

We’ve talked about blogging relationships before (cliff notes version: we’re against it), but we have to admit that a jointly created relationship blog seems to be an entirely different beast from anything we’ve seen before. We’re almost inclined to call it romantic — a digital scrapbook of a beautiful affair, say, or an online art project celebrating the love between two people. And certainly, the format holds the potential to fulfill such lofty notions.

At the same time, however, we can’t help but approach it with a certain amount of reservation — because, of course, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yes, making your partner a part of the online discussion of your relationship makes some things easier: you don’t have to worry what they’ll think about what you write, or if they’ll get upset if they learn how much, or what, you’ve been sharing about the relationship. But even so, we can’t help but wonder what happens when there’s strife or drama within the relationship — or when one party wants to publish something that the other would prefer to keep secret.

And, of course, there’s still the question of why: why put this all online, why create a public forum for a private relationship? Does blogging a relationship make it more valid, more real, more true? Does public acknowledgment — or at least awareness — somehow solidify relationship status? Or does shining a constant spotlight on one’s intimate affairs, opening up a relationship to constant public scrutiny, serve to weaken the very bond it’s meant to celebrate?

There are so many questions, and we can’t even begin to fathom the answers. We can’t see ourselves launching a project like this (romantic notions aside, we’re still rather hesitant about living — or shall we say dating — in public), but we’re certainly interested to see where Jakob and Julia take it.

[Photo by Noah Kalina]