To invite or not to invite

For a while now, I've been playing with the idea of making this a subscribed or an invited blog. And I am still unable to figure out a good way to do this. The only option now is to make it private, invite the handful of readers whose email address I do have and hope that the rest will simply ask.

But after a week of trying this, what I realised is that anyone who potentially tries to reach here gets a cold “This blog is open to invited readers only. It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation.”

Now to most people that would look like a locked door. People assume, as I myself have done many times, that if the blogger wanted me to read, I'd have got an invite. As I did not, I'm not going to embarrass us both by asking. Until I realised that things really don't work that way. I didn't have all my readers' email addresses. And even those I had were only of a few who have commented on the blog - a small percentage of my actual readers.

And I do want my blog to open to anyone who wants to read. It's like my home used to be at one point. Where people could drop by anytime, grab a coffee and make themselves comfortable. Some people who read are friends or at least kindred spirits as Anne of Green Gables would say. They understand where I'm coming from. I have no problems with strangers reading my blog either. Their opinion can't affect me at all.
The in-between relative/acquaintance/colleagues non-kindred-spirit type people reading it scares the hell out of me. The other day someone quoted something from my blog, assumed that I'd written about the mate and actually sympathised that we were having problems. Now that I wish I didn't have to deal with. I have loads of friends and we talk about loads of issues – some related to us, some to other people. Not everything blog about is about me.

Now I either don't write or I keep in mind all the possible ways in which a post can be misconstrued by non-kindred spirits. I do defensive writing now and its wearying and not so much fun any more. And then, tra la, blessed release! The spouse noticed the trouble I was having and the sparse posts since we met and asked me “to publish and be damned” if I wished. So for now, I'm opening up the blog again. And airing my opinions in my own little corner of cyberspace. :)