Dear Anonymous Commenter

It has come to my attention that I have a new visitor to my blog. This person works in some capacity for the State of Ohio, according to the IP address that comes up on my blog counter stats.

I always welcome new readers, don't get me wrong.

But yesterday, I got my first truly anonymous comment on my post about the dream of remarrying my ex and how I've finally moved on. My other commenters who use the Anonymous feature always leave their names so I know who they are, so in an effort to figure out who this unknown person was, I started going through my blog stats.

Turns out, this person came to my blog on September 29th (Monday) at 7:21am, it appears for the first time. Over the next couple of hours they glanced through most of the monthly archives, and eventually started reading my blog posts by label.

Oddly enough, the labels all had to do with me and my ex-husband's relationship. Labels such as "The Ex", "Divorce", "Cheating Husbands", "Mother-in-Law", "Boat", and even "Weekend Fun" and "Mental State". Some of the individual posts read included the one about my wedding anniversary two weeks ago, and the day of my divorce.

These things seemed odd to me, but I also considered that whoever my new reader was, might just be trying to get caught up on my story, and since this blog is about starting over after divorce, logically they would look under the key words pertaining to that, right? Makes perfect sense.

But then I saw the one thing that sent my radar into high gear.

Two searches of my blog were done...both under my Ex's name. That's when I got a little creeped out by this. I have never, ever mentioned my Ex's name in this blog, and never will. The people who know me, know who he is so I don't need to say his name. The rest of my readers have no idea who is is, nor do they care. So clearly, Anonymous at least knows me, or knows us both.

Based on the comments yesterday, I assume Anonymous is a woman. There was nothing really too weird about the comments (other than the "Play on, player" thing. WTF?) (I've been called a lot of things in my life, but player isn't one of them!!!!) but knowing that whoever is leaving them clearly knows enough about me to know my ex's name, well I find that to be very unsettling.

One may argue that by having a blog that can be read by anyone in the world, I am opening myself up and should just deal with it. I respect that. By the same token, I have the right to know who is searching for information about my ex. I have never said anything about him, or our marriage ending that I have not said to his face, but seeing how he has very few friends and lots of enemies, my comfort level has been compromised by this particular situation.

This could be very harmless, and I could be overreacting. And if I am, I apologize. But anyone who knows me well enough to know my ex's name should have no problem identifying themselves to me.

So, I am officially asking you to identify yourself, because I know you are reading this. You can email me privately if you'd rather not out yourself via comments. If you know me really well, call me. But just understand that I have had problems in the past with unstable people stalking me, and I am uncomfortable not knowing who you are. So before I block your IP and/or contact your network administrator, I'm giving you a chance to identify yourself.

Thank you.