Blogger stalker #1: LSL

I love reading blogs as much as I love writing them. Not that I am a knowsy person (if I do, I'll just be a paparazzi and stalk the living hell out of people night and day), but I do enjoy reading others' encounters and experiencing lives that are different than mine. Often enough, I find myself chuckle/shed tears/worry along with the blogger because I can relate to them. That being said, I am somewhat of a picky blog/twitter follower, as I don't follow someone if they don't have anything better to say. It's bloggers with true emotions, brutal honesty and sense of humour that makes me want to go back and read their blog/tweet on a regular basis.

I do always want to meet up with some of these people whom I've been passively stalking, but since Vancouver is not the ultimate vacation destination with great monuments and exotic fruits and half naked leather people walking on the street, I never have a chance to meet with anyone in real life from the blogger/twitter world. So when LSL from Long Story Longer emailed me a few weeks back and said she is coming up for a concert, I wrote her back immediately and said I would love to stalk her in real life, she just needs to sit down on a bench somewhere and I'll bring my binoculars.

Despite the twists and turns that almost stopped her from visiting Vancouver (I'm sure she will have fun typing what happened), we finally met yesterday at a Starbucks around where she stayed and had 2.5 hours of wonderful conversations.

It's amazing how after you read about someone's blog for over 2 years, you actually know the person quite well. I was like meeting up with a long lost friend and just chat non-stop. She was exactly how I imagined her to be and have such great appreciation of life. We talked about things that are deeper than the blog level and share things that was a bit harder to explain in our blogs. It was also fun to "gossip" about other common blogger friends we have, like we laughed at how funny and silly Durban Bud is, we plotted out a scam and will trick Wits' End into visit us from the UK, and we tried to figure out why Blogography gets to travel so much and meet with cats and monkeys all over the world. I honestly had such a great time that it was sad I didn't get to spend more time and show her around Vancouver.

Now that I have LSL as a proof that it is possible for humans to survive after spending two hours with me (well, I haven't got a text back from her yet, so I will say that she did survive me until I left her, can't promise about the side-effects), maybe I will have more visitors from now on? My binoculars are ready.

Comments

[Greg]

I hope this scam of yours includes airfare :D

So, you spent 2.5 hours in Starbucks and then didn't have time to show LSL around Vancouver?.. Hmmm... I wonder if these two facts aren't a little related?

Nice pic of you and Surf Girl, by the way.

[Steve and Warren]

Hey man, nice to see you back on line also.

Take care and we'll be reading you daily.

S & W

[Long Story Longer]

Yes, I survived!

I met up with a few local bloggers last night and bragged about what a great time I had meeting you, and how fun, funny, and interesting you are. Thank you so, so much! I know for a fact that we'll get to hang out again, and I can't wait.

And Greg - we could have spent some of that 2.5 hours together walking around Vancouver if I hadn't been so hungover that I asked Buddhafied if we could just plant ourselves someplace close to my hotel. Oops.