This Fish Needs A Bicycle

Excellent article, Fish. It makes me feel more "normal" when I find out that other people think and react like I do. Glad you two came out of this for the better.

Thank you :)

great column.... i was wondering when it would hit the news stand -- thanks for sharing the link with your loyal readers. as always, your writing is fun, insightful and oh-so-relevant.

Congrats, Fish! Your blog has always been on the top of my must-reads, and now the whole Manhattan Isle (and the NY Times-reading world beyond) gets to enjoy it too!
Is this Tines column a one-time shot, or a regular gig?

-Lucid Girl

great article!

lovely article, esp. acknowledging how easy it is to use the internet to fuel our neuroses.

Hooray! Great article! Congrats!

After reading all 3 blogs for quite some time now (yours, BW and young photographer) it has come full circle, finally. Excellent article. Congrats on the article and for being strong.

Congratulations! I enjoyed reading the article. Don't stop writing.

Congratulations on the excellent article! Enjoyed it, like all your writing, very much!

Congrats Fish, I am so happy for you. You truly have a gift.
Enjoy!

wowowowow! Congratulations! It was so so so good. I feel so special to be a loyal reader of a now-famous NYTimes columnist. ;)

fish! how fabulous!!

Drink up fish.
One more rung up the ladder.
my favorites Icon will never feel the same.

Can you take us back on vacation again?

Nice - very nice. Congratulations on realizing this blogger's dream, to be published.

That was a fantastic article. Congrats!

Wow. Thanks to nytimes.com for leading me to Fish . . . and thanks to Fish for sharing with such grace and humor. Keep it coming!!

it's kind of like bridget jones! :)

I suspect that, once this article hits the newsstands, the hit count is going to at least double... if not more.

Congrats, Fish... I think you're about to go big time.

Loved the article. Like some I've been reading all three blogs for quite some time, and I like how everything has come full circle. I'd always wondered how you and the "young photographer" had known one another... and now I know.

Seriously exciting that it's in the NY Time though... for you, not me (although maybe one day).

I'm one of those bloggers who reads you all the time but never comments. Howver, I admit, I haven't been reading blogs for several months. Personal stuff.

Imagine my shock when I read the New York Times online today and saw your article! "I KNOW HER!" I thought!

Ok, I don't really know you... but like most of your readers, I feel like I do. That's the blogiverse for you.

Congrats.

Congrats on your article!

Heather, Just discovered your site. Love it and very happy for you that you're getting the exposure you deserve in the Times. Best wishes!

Hey, that was a wonderful article you wrote for the New York Times. It's so refreshing to read about the life of a seasoned blogger. I was always so skeptical of putting my personal diary on the Internet (after getting countless viruses through e-mails, witnessing my I-do-everything-over-the-Net Mom swim the Sea of Identity Theft and reading several articles on the AP wire --I'm a copy editor at a newspaper -- about spammers finally getting enough jail time to regret ever learning how to say HTML). I've just gotten into blogging after my best friend introduced me to some sites...I've always been one to write down my thoughts (but the key word is WRITE) Anyway, enough about me...I pray for much success in your career as a writer...You'll definitely have a Carrie (a la Sex in the City) following after that column...Be blessed...

Congrats! Very nice.

Congrats, and well done.

found your blog throiugh the ny times article--they made a great choice in asking you to write--wonderful piece,congrats!
new reader,susan

I used to read your blog and then forgot about it, somehow... So I read your column because it was good, not because of who you are. It's great: well-written and honest, in a not-too-self-pitying sort of way. And I'm happy to have been reminded about the blog as a nice side-effect.

Wow Fish, how proud you must be? Great job!!

Keep up the fantastic writing.

Never read a blog before. Now I know why. How could you be attracted to someone with such bad spelling? How could you have a family member consider being a cop? Yeeks. Good bye blogging!

I signed on to say: "YAY, YAY, YAY!!"

I wish the creeps would stay in the woodwork rather then coming out. Don't let "m" spoil your great day!

Well, as THE YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHER, I have to applaud you for you courage and brilliant writing. I wish you all good things my dear... I hope this is only the beginning of your actualized dreams. (And I hope you know I would never send an anonymous email to anyone... I'd rather be a scathing bitch to their face. Anonymous, as you can tell from my stephanieklein.com blog, just ain't my style.)

LOVED your article. I met my last guy on Friendster and would constantly cyberstalk all of his female friendters convinced that they were so much more glamorous and interesting than me (I'm a lawyer and he's an editor) and seriously drove myself nuts. I'm glad to know I'm not alone, and I hope you're glad to know that you're not!

While I liked the piece, I feel so sorry for all you young women--how can you let yourselves be treated so poorly?

Hello, Heather-

Read your article in the Times this morning and loved it. You're funny and talented.

I suspect that traffic to your site will go through the roof and stay there.

Congratulations!

Terry

disapointment flowed over me when i read "the article" - you use Internet Explorer?!!

surely as a leading member of the bloggerati you know that Firefox is where it's at?

Spread the worrd!

Seriously, congratulations

like the others, read your article this morning and wandered over to your site. as a college senior with highspeed internet, cyberstalking through google, friendster and now thefacebook as well as blogging is something my friends and i have fallen in to during our time here.
i'm glad to have found the fun and very relatable read in the fashion section and now i have found one more blog to frequent. thanks.

like the others, read your article this morning and wandered over to your site. as a college senior with highspeed internet, cyberstalking through google, friendster and now thefacebook as well as blogging is something my friends and i have fallen in to during our time here.
i'm glad to have found the fun and very relatable read in the fashion section and now i have found one more blog to frequent. thanks.

Fabulous Fish! I have been reading for a few months, and I'm so happy to see you've been published. In the NYT of all places. Good for you for sharing your fabulousness with the world.

Fish,

Congratulations on your accomplishments! I hope it was an excellent celebratory brunch.

I'm glad to be one of 2,000 daily readers.

Congrats a mundo-

You are everything I strive for when I remember the parental admonishment of my childhood, "Don't get your hopes up".

Thank you, Heather, for not being afraid to be disappointed and for being brave enough to be real.

very, very awesome stuff! i read the article in the NY Times, and have now discovered both your journal and the other angles of the blogging triangle. thanks for inspiring me to get better at writing - you have a way with words. such a good way. note that i also keep a blog, or rather, a pseudo-blog (because it's on LiveJournal). i update it pretty frequently, so feel free to read! :D

Over dinner tonight the subject of meeting dates online somehow came up and my boyfriend's roommate told us all how he'd read an article in the New York Times today about a woman who had met a man through her blog and started dating him and all the trouble it had caused.

I had to bite my tongue SO HARD to keep from mentioning that I read you regularly. (Being a closet web journaler is tough sometimes.)

Anyway. You have now acheived enough fame that you are being brough up over dinner by my random friends. Exciting.

congrats, h! it's so wonderful to see it in all its 'in print' (well, on my computer screen) glory! it came out wonderfully!

Oh, geez. Now I've run across something else I'll feel compelled to read every day?

Can you just email me the really good parts?

I am not a regular reader of your BLOG, but I'm a regular reader of the Sunday NYTimes. I really enjoyed your article! Good luck with the BLOG and the crazy world of being single.

I discovered your blog through www.myurbankvetch.blogspot.com and I am thrilled to have made the discovery. Congratulations on your achievement and obvious success. Enjoy the ride!

Usually just lurked, but that was an awesome article! Congratulations and keep on writing!

BRAVO!!! Awesome job Fish! The article had the same easy flow that you write in your journal with and what a pleasure that is to read!

Hey, if it means anything to you, one nycguy to a nycgirl. I just checked out the "young photographer's" site out of curiosity. You're way more cute than she is. Don't worry about her freckles, it's more like leathery polka dotted skin. haha, you have that luminious glow beauty that she can't even dream of. hope alls wells and a good life to you.

-nycguy

i was referred here from the "musician's" site. i love this blog and your story in the Times is great. but what do you expect from a male musician? i'm a female musician and know how dumb and self-involved single male musicians are. i have certain requirements for playing with male musicians -- they must be married, have had kids, formerly married and had kids, gay. the last thing i want to do is be holed up in some van with a bunch of middle-aged single guys comparing penile implant sizes and bragging about how all the young things want to rub their big bald heads. :) keep it up. love the blog.

Congratulations on being published. :-)

I enjoyed the column. I know I'm not a strong enough woman to date a blogger dating other bloggers. That's just too much information available to my wandering fingers and eyes. Credit to you for finding a way to deal.

first time reader, came here from the times article which I enjoyed. Bloggers dating bloggers who met online -- how meta?

Oh boy did this strike a chord with me. My boyfriend and I are not "fellow bloggers" - but he did give me the link to the website of the girl he dated before me. He gave me the link to read a particular poem, and I didn't know who owned the site at first - but the poem was cool so I went through more of the site... and got far more detail about she & him together than I EVER wanted to know. That was almost 5 years ago and it still haunts me, so to speak.

Your experience just goes to show that technology doesn't change human nature. It just makes it easier to indulge in our obessions, both good and bad. Hopefully we, as you did, will learn something valuable from it all.

Great article and congrats on your new New York Timesy-ness!

Great Article! Congratulations!

Yay Fish! Good job with the article, but then of course those of us who have been here a while already knew you were a great writer.

Blogs after all, are the new black. :)

Great article - hopefully there'll be many more to come. as as someone who was once involved with a male musician (albeit a different one) myself, i know the pits and falls of dating an artistic man... musicians beign the most alluring and dangerous of them all.

Welcome back from Morocco and congratulations on the article!!

I read the piece online, and loved it. Thank you for your honesty and insight. Congratulations on getting published, and your site's now bookmarked.

This is really entertaining stuff. It's so 21st century. Incestuous Blogging. So much better than Reality television. "Musician" should pitch it to MTV - Real World is getting old, THIS is so much Juicier :)

How about the "Real Blogs New York"?

This is the true story of three strangers, picked to Blog in NYC and have their lives taped, find out what happens when people start getting REAL. The Real Blog, New York!

I'd watch.

Blog on

so happy for you, fish! to be published and in the times no less. nicely done :)

completely OT:
are you going to be posting pics from morocco? are there any that CAN be posted? :)

dear Fish,

Nice article. Rock on. And, with that, i'm back to lurking for another eon. :)

Congrats H, on the excellent article. It was Blogtastic. You are missed back in C-Bridge.

Just finished your article in Sunday's NYT.

Okay, I realize it was in the Styles section which is the official ghetto for People Who Have Nothing Better To Do And Plenty Of Time In Which To Do It, but your jejune and solipsistic blatherings made the usual SundayStyles fare read like the autobiography of Theresa of Avila. I guess your tone could have been a _little_ more "Oh jeepers, Dear Diary, I think Dreamy Todd really, REALLY likes me!", but I'm not sure how...maybe if the Times had had the technical capacity to print your bleating in pink with little hearts to crown each letter "i" and Cupid's arrows to cross each "t".

Now, if you choose to air your middle-school obsessions on your site, that is, of course, entirely between you and your clutch of readers. However, to commit these same mewlings to the irrevocable black-and-white of the national press betrays a disturbing need to inflict--and rather brutally at that--your mealy anxieties on an unsuspecting readership. At any rate, take comfort in the fact that, no matter how dreary your navelgazing or insipid your insights, there are apparently scores of visitors to your site whose own lives are so blighted as to find yours fascinating. Best regards.

Um, wow. That last one was one of the most pathetic bunches of sour grapes I've read. Congrats, Fish, on a nice article, and on provoking such envious bile.

Word up on the sours, Mark. But I love it when commenters wear their pointy hats in public.

Fish, late congrats: I missed the hard copy of your piece and just read it online. Well done! In some ways I wish my life were still that complicated, and in others, well, I'm glad that phase went its merry way. I'm content to leave my public face on the blog, and to keep the private one close to the heart.

Actually, Mark, that was a very sharply done piece of condescension. Brava, sobsistah. But, in the case that you were unaware, allow me to point out, there is a surfeit of dreary navelgazing and insipid insight and, you forgot! abject self-absorption - in national publications and, alors! everywhere.

This is the new new/i>, even though it's actually not that new.

Did not the Fish write engagingly about the topic? Or perhaps you failed to notice the connection between the column's title, "Modern Love," and the subject, meblog a trois (if I may be so bold as to invent silly words under your baleful gaze).

Your disapprovement might sting were it not for the ridiculous "best regards" with which you try to rescue your burp of rage. For you obviously do not intend to transmit your best regards. Perhaps you meant to say, Good DAY. As in, and good DAY to YOU, TOO, madam.

Still, nicely worded. Have you thought of writing a blog?

Fish - I'm more curious about the ethical struggles in using the Internet to stalk (used casually here) current and ex-lovers. Especially when we hear so many citizens decrying the federal government's encroaching upon our personal privacy. (Yes, yes... bloggers forego some entitlement to privacy or put themselves out there as anonymous puzzles to be figured out, since it is always a possibility.)

Anyway, it IS interesting to read strangers' journals and to find out they had been or started to or are dating or whatever. I don't know why it is (interesting), just that it is.

Or maybe I should just get a life. Heh.

Holy shit! Did I just write "disapprovement"-? Ack!

(Note to self: Proof-read BEFORE posting. Dammit.)

congratulations, heather! i'm so proud. it's a very well written article and an excellent story.

also, a technical writer? we share the same misery.

that is one killer article, but i can't believe you are still friends with that guy. he sounds like such a narcissist.

Fish may not be Proust or Lessing (who is one of the best writers of the last century bar on the subject of male-female relations) but she isn't a tabloid writer either. I thought the article well-written and entertaining and was thankful that it had very little to do with Benjamin whose entries didn't win him an admirer in this reader. Was he honest? Who cares. He's mundane and full of himself - an embarrassing combo in any individual of any adult age. The best I can say about Benjamin is that he appears to have all the charm of a The OC show character.

I, like tons of others apparently, found you through Gothamist/NY Times. Just wanted to let you know that I really liked your post. It's nice to know that there are others who've gone through the gnawing need to know through blogs and have come out on the other side of not reading everything you to which you have access.

Dang, a very similar thing happened to a friend of mine recently - though she's not a blogger, her new dating buddy gave her the link to his live journal. I immediately realized what an incredible opportunity to stalk this was, and promptly began reading his and his previous girlfriend's blogs. Which is how I found out before my friend that her boy had asked her out the day after breaking up with his ex, and was totally still in love with the ex and pining away over her...I was as gentle as possible but eventually my pal read the page herself and was, fortunately or unfortunately, entirely prepared when he announced his reunion with the ex. (Luckily, both Boy and Ex's live journals also provided insight into how lame they are, so it was no great loss for my best girl).

Congrats on your publishing! The New York Times - that is incredible. What a great place to see your name in print. You deserve it, girl. Oh, of course, it was fabulous, by the way.

Congratulations!

Good work Heather!! Great article and well done for resisting the temptation to investigate SmugontheUWS further (or at least, for not admiting it in public eh!!) ;)

Albeit belated, congratulations.

boy, you've got your commentors well-trained, haven't you?

A fascinating, existential read. I came upon the article first and then your blog. Consider yourself bookmarked! Thank you!

Oi! Got to you from Stephanie's blog. Also read the Times article. It really is an incestuous business, this web log freakshow. Just got here, so I have lots of catching up to do. Look forward to reading some of your "stuff." Yes, yet another reader courtesy of the Times (or, really, SK).

I don't generally engage trolls, but sobsister, well, she doesn't actually rise to the level of troll on this one. I just wanted to point out that someone who berates Styles for being "the official ghetto for People Who Have Nothing Better To Do And Plenty Of Time In Which To Do It" has wasted so much time in Creating Capitalized Phrases To Show Off that she neglected to realize that she is one of those people with nothing to do--she obviously reads the section pretty thoroughly every freakin' week. And the snide little obscurities and denigrating adjectives--of which I am certain she doesn't know the full meanings--obviously peg her as a failed writer, not to mention a pretty lonely person.

To all of this, I say nevermind, though, and I simply put up what we say to all trolls: Don't like it, don't spend time on it.

Fish, excellent work.

I think you are the bees knees and I am so proud of you for being in the NY Times. Fabulous piece. Finally someone who's not afraid to say how she really feels! Bravo!