Blog Life Vs Real Life

I’m writing this in an early Sunday Morning reflective kind of mood…

Yesterday I came well out of the comfort zone I normally set myself, although at the time no one would have been any wiser.

Whilst I can be a very confident person in some situations, in others I’m actually very introverted and if I can’t fully relax around some people I would possibly be assumed to be quiet and/or uninterested. So on the day of the OM Yoga show, I was a mix of emotions about meeting fellow blogger’s ‘in real life’ and it took a lot to tweet the group of bloggers that I was talking to, and updated them that I’d arrived.

I arrived at the event flustered; in the company of a kind yogi I’d met on the bus, due to transport issues and delays. Every ounce of confidence I’d built up had gone. My hair looked terrible (not that it had any impact) I felt rushed and not at all calm and confident. If I’m being honest, I had every intention of avoiding meeting anyone because I genuinely didn’t think I had the nerve to do it.

Those who did meet at the event might be surprised to read that;, but it was only when I bumped into Laura that I calmed down and knew I could introduce myself.  It’s strange, I’d spoken to these people online for months or years and of a sudden, we were meeting like long lost pen friends.

Then the natural thing happened, I went into ‘Katie Overdrive’ – talking at 100mph, bouncing about, laughing even the situation wasn’t hugely amusing. In summary, I was simply behaving like an over-excited puppy.

So on the way home I started to think about ‘Blog Life Vs Real Life’ and I pondered are we being true to ourselves or are we only displaying the perfect aspects of our life that we feel is worthy?

Of course, I don’t write about the mundane, boring aspects of my life, but I do like to share the messy events where recipes go horribly wrong. Or when I trip over running my local route and the fact that sometimes, take so much on I can’t handle it and completely burn out. After all, I’m not superhuman, I’m just a lady who has a small space on the internet and a fondness for cat’s, exercise and nut butter.

Whilst I was people watching from the window of my big red London bus I started to ponder what it was really like behind the scenes of the ‘huge glossy blog’s’, the common names, the individuals who have huge numbers of followers and display a life of perfection.

I’m sure that deep down there is the voyeur in us that likes to sit in our pj’s with a top knot and think ‘Would I be more content with my blog if I was like that?’..Or something along those lines, I think it’s inevitable that at some point in our lives we go through stages of comparison and if we are comparing ourselves to a lie then we will never find contentment.

I spent some time on Friday evening reading these blog’s and gazing at the Instagram feed’s, now I’m  a big fan of beautiful photography but I felt nothing but sadness looking at one particular lady. She is exquisitely beautiful, her figure is incredible and all her pictures look completely unnatural. I was yearning to see one photo of her laughing with a friend and not ‘perfect’. I’m not saying I wanted her to look unattractive (I don’t think she could?), just naturally happy, candid shot to break it all up would have made a refreshing change.

You see, I care very little about how people look if I find them engaging or if they write a blog that makes me feel like I’m reading something who view’s the world in an interesting way. They may look less popular from a statistic’s point of view but often the quietest person has the most interesting story.

I’m okay if people don’t think I’m exciting or popular enough, or my follower count is low. I have a life that I enjoy living, so does it really matter? Should it matter?

Moving on to running, I went through a stage when I was very aware of my speed’s and distances. It appeared that everyone was running a marathon when I was happy just pottering 6 miles on a Sunday. Without realising what I was doing, I was only posting about about the faster run’s and not giving a fair impression.

I wasn’t sharing that I honestly just enjoyed plodding 2 miles around the block at 10 minute mile pace as much as I did 8 minute mile pace. I was missing the beauty that it is being ‘real’ and not a professional athlete and that’s the whole point of being a blogger. A blog should be used to share something that you care about from a real, unbiased point of view. Or at the very least I hope it is.

There are times when I drool over instragrams of perfect meals and look at the messy tupperware salad on my lap and think ‘oh…not so shareable’. For me to get an Instagram worthy picture, it’ll take a good 10+ minutes of setting up, using props, and then editing. By then my food is cold.  

What I’m trying to say is that it’s okay to show your human, people will judge even if you have 10 followers or 10,000 followers and we shouldn’t try to be ‘flawless’.

I spent a long time in my early 20’s trying to create a life that looked good on the outside, I spent a fortune on car’s, I wore uncomfortable shoes and my hair was fake.

It was only when I completely overhauled my lifestyle I realised it was okay to not be ‘Miss Popular’ and that if staying on the sofa in a Primark one piece felt okay to me. Go hard or go home? Well, I’m going to go and have a jolly nice time thank you.

Trust me, in my nearly 30 years on this planet I’ve learnt that being content is far better than trying to like all the same crap that everyone else pretends to like.

Katie

x

P.s

Yesterday I met : Laura – Fab – Eleanor (and Phil) do go say hello!