There’s an apparent irony in calling this site “Meet Chris Wilcox,” given that the only audience I can expect is the one made up of people who already know me from somewhere and are curious enough to take a look. In the beginning, that’s who I can reach. The site might spread beyond the first degree, to people who actually are encountering my name here first of all, but that’s nothing I can predict.
To start, I have to assume that the people reading this know me from somewhere.
Or think they do, anyway.
The reality is that I can be an especially challenging person to know. Not inclined to chit-chat, I still live largely by my childhood mantra of “Cut the small talk.” If people are congregating here, there’s a good chance I’m headed somewhere quieter. So the first challenge is tracking me down, cornering me, getting me involved in conversation.
The second challenge is that, even if you manage all that, there’s a good chance you still haven’t met me. There isn’t much self-disclosure in a first, second, or third conversation with me, and there won’t be any at all if I feel uneasy. In the presence of most people, I feel uneasy – anxious, on display – much of the time.
So even standing face to face, there’s bound to be a wall between us. That’s one wall at minimum: Maybe you bring your own wall, built of different feelings and different strategies for hiding in plain sight.
This is in no way an ideal state of affairs, and a personal website is in no way a definitive solution. But it is one way to share what’s on my side of the wall, to slip past some of my defenses and show more than is possible by other means. It’s all the stuff that would take forever to extract from me in the course of everyday conversation, made real and comprehensible (to you and me) by the act of writing it down.
I fear this makes it sound like you’re in for lots of tiresome soul-searching. More than that, I have in mind posting funny, poignant things I wouldn’t think to tell you unless the exact right mood struck. Or news about stuff I’m working on but would be too embarrassed to go around jabbering about in one-on-one encounters with different people. If I can broadcast that stuff once for those who care to know, that will suit me infinitely better than trying to repeat myself all the time.
If you’d like to be kept in the loop, enter your email address in the subscription box at top left. You’ll get an email whenever new stuff is posted. The plan is to only post awesome stuff, on a two-or-so-times-per-month basis.
Meet Chris Wilcox.