I stopped because there's usually something fundamentally dishonest about just about all the blogs I've ever come across, and mine was no exception.  That doesn't mean to say that they can't be entertaining, knowing, intelligent or worthy - sometimes even the biggest lies are all of those things, which is why some of us still study the concept of the novel as an artform at university - but it does mean that as a personal exercise in diary-keeping, they're often rubbish.  Even if the readers of the blog don't feel that (and I suspect they'll very rarely stop to give it a second thought) the writer often will.  As I'm not the world's biggest emotional exhibitionist, despite regularly performing or reading poetry in public, I was, and am, a major-league poker bluffer across the blog format.  If I had a problem, I probably wouldn't tell you in a blog entry unless I was almost reaching for the bumper pack of paracetamol.  

Bloggers trick us frequently, and are absolute masters at sounding like martyrs when they are running into personal difficulties, or portraying themselves as flowering geniuses when things are going well.  I've read confessional sentences many times in blogs written by people I've never met, but always sensed that matters are not as straightforward or one-sided as described - because real life never is.  Relationships rarely break down amicably because they've "run their natural course".  People don't have awful bosses for eight jobs in a row (although three in a row sounds like a fair total).  Your husband, wife or partner is never as awful as they sound from a 1,500 word rant you've written the very same day you argued with them.  Your children are not abnormally intelligent.  You are not as beautiful as your Photoshopped self.  Whether you like it or not, that house party you attended was not like something out of Andy Warhol's Factory.  It wasn't.  It just wasn't, OK?  I was in the corner, dipping breadsticks in the cheesedip listening to you all talking shite.  And so on.

Over time, I came to the conclusion that personal blogs usually fell into three distinct categories - the ones (such as mine) which were obviously and perhaps needlessly doing the "Hello" magazine job of painting over any cracks whilst the non-famous blogger tried to make themselves sound likeable but perhaps rather dull.  Then there were the ones where the non-famous blogger tried to make themselves sound as honest as possible, portraying the good and the bad in their lives, but failing to be completely honest about one key thing - themselves.  True, they may well have thrown in short cryptic entries about how awful or dumb or drunk they'd been, but that would often be the most you'd get.  The really negative long entries were saved for people who had wronged them.  And who can blame them?  Don't even ask me to write down the ten worst things I've done in my life here, even with notes of justification.  They're none of your business.  Then finally, of course, there are celebrity blogs, which are almost universally a waste of time and massive exercises in dishonesty and attention seeking.  

Almost all people have an over-ride switch in their brain which wipes clean those nasty little memories of when they were a bit of a cad.  People tend not to have crystal clear memories of the crap moments in their lives either, choosing to remember them as a depressing drag rather than an emotional stew to be reheated daily.  But to me, the choice has always been clear-cut - if you want to live by a clumsily edited, Hollywood version of your personal history, keep a blog, and run the risk of screwing up your memories and brainwashing yourself years down the line.  And if you really, really must have an accurate record of everything, keep your own personal diary, warts and all.  Some things are too precious to be trifled with.