Does having a blog strengthen or weaken one’s friendships?

I was talking to a friend of mine (Jill from theholtsite.com) recently. Although we hadn’t spoken in a while Jill commented that she felt like she knew what I’d been up to. This blog had done a pretty good job of keeping her up to date. She also said that another friend of hers had likewise made a similar comment about her blog while they visited at a wedding.

“Did you hear that Dan got married?” Jill asked. “Yes,” I quickly responded, “I read about it on your blog.”

After laughing about these comments our conversation suddenly became quiet. We were already caught up on each other’s lives! What more could we talk about?

This got me thinking about the purpose of blogging. I often tell people that we blog in order to keep our far flung family and friends up to date on our comings and goings. For those that we don’t talk to frequently it works well. When we do get to talk with them we can skip past the daily stuff and go onto more personal matters.

But, what about people we see frequently? I’ve brought up topics with family members who look at me and say, “yeah. I read that on your blog…” and I’m stopped in my tracks. Quickly, I try to find a new topic of conversation. It isn’t so much that it is difficult to find a new topic, just that I’m still surprised when others already know the story I’ve thought to share with them.

Have you found this happening in your relationships? Are you able to balance your online relationship with your real life relationship with your friends and family?