The heading of this post is much like the email you receive from your boss or someone else in the office with the subject line “Free Beer”. It has nothing to do with free beer but does get your attention.

In actual fact this post does relate to the subject line, just not in the kind of naked that one would expect.

I am taking about being naked on the internet. Not, naked like a ‘sexting’ with pictures or the teen photographing themselves in the bedroom of there parents house for the love of their life boy/girlfriend of a whole three weeks now, where that private photograph follows them for the rest of their lives including their first job interview kind of naked (longs sentence, sorry…. take a deep breath now if you are reading out loud…) but, the kind of naked as in being out there completely exposed. I am thinking this is what I am doing with this blog. I am not sure if that is what I want to do?

I just read a couple of older posts out loud to my wife and as I was reading them I was thinking that perhaps I sound a little insane. But, the post was really what I was thinking at the time, which was the purpose and point of the post. My blog is about getting my ideas, thoughts, opinions down and putting them somewhere other than my Journal. But, is ‘out there’ the place they should be. Do I really want you to see me, as me, when I am having a fair bit of trouble actually finding me at the best of times.

Plus, is all this just a bit to pretentious and too self indulgent…. Yes, has to be the answer, I give myself.

So as I am putting it out there, when I am putting my ideas and thoughts out there, I am also putting myself out there….. Naked. Is that what I want.

Well, look at this this way. I know that in theory that is what I am doing, but in reality that is not happening now, because no one is reading my blog, because I haven’t put myself out there yet. That is the Catch 22 I am living with this blog at the moment. I am truly, at this time, writing to myself and the one friend who visited the site for a critique… And then went on with their life and I am pretty sure hasn’t visited since…. But, knowing I am writing in a public forum where eventually someone will read what I have written….. And I have no control as to who that will be (other than the about 300 spam posts which I have blocked and appear now to have stopped!)

But, I must be hoping that people will eventually read my blog, or otherwise why would I be writing it…. See, it is happening already, you are finding out my secrets.

Perhaps it is not about being naked that troubles me (although getting the naked me, standing in the middle if the road for all to see mental picture out of my head will be a problem) it is, can I accept the reflections I might receive from the world…. Some may be too true… Or some may be distortions like the fat and skinny mirrors at the Show.

Maybe the reflections are only in the eye of the beholder.

I want to ramble about how I don’t want this blog to be subjected to the toxic attacks of internet trolls (whatever they really are – does an internet troll call themselves an internet troll…. Do they have to be short?) and for it to not be about me being naked, but me being naked and laughed at, and ridiculed, and bullied, and embarrassed….

So why go there, or actually here… At this blog?

It may not be about being naked, it might just be about not hiding anymore.

Being a better man, unfortunately can not be done in a bubble. Life goes on, and I suppose being a better man is like the tree that falls in the forest….. If I am just a better man to myself, would anyone hear?

Do you mind, if just for a while, I keep my clothes on, we don’t necessarily have to go all the way, we can just sit here and talk, and perhaps cuddle….. We’ll see how things develop from there. If it doesn’t work out, I suppose one of us can just leave….