“Never reveal all of yourself to other people;
hold back something in reserve so that people are never quite sure if they really know you.”
— Michael Korda

I was reminded of this by the lovely afrobella, who Twittered about the openness we bloggers should expect (or is expected of us).

I made a conscious decision a long time ago that I would become a somewhat enigmatic character, even choosing a pen name, J. Dakar, because at the time I didn’t want any issue if my students (or their parents) found something I had written a bit inappropriate. Granted, a former employer once found some of my erotica, but that’s another story for another time.

It’s funny, though, how things have played out since I became a “blogger”. My first foray into web writing was an online journal my online friend Jojo hosted for me at her domain, bornhated.com. I must have been 14 or 15 at the time and used the space to chronicle my life (how interesting that must have been) and showcase my coding and graphic design skills. Ha! I even considered myself a web designer with a handful of clients and offered my services to non-profit organizations after launching my first web company, jh-media.com, in early 1999. Before long, though, I had grown tired of having my personal space hosted by someone else and branched out on my own…sorta.

Two more of my online friends* really hooked me up: Nicole of blazed-up.net (and many other domains) gave me my first domain, and Sheik provided hosting for it. I set up my “personal online residence” at c0nflict.net, which, in addition to the journal I’d previously had, also included a few of my “words and rhymes”, under the pseudonym XIX which led to a college paper titled “Xamining I Xistence”. I suppose a therapist reading that might identify the early stages of a dissociative identity disorder I might have alternating between J. Dakar in the online world and Jeff Holley in the offline one. While I know mental health is no laughing matter, I am kidding about the dual personas; it’s just proven to be most advantageous to be able to separate the two. But not always; for example, when Angel and I attended the first ever African-American Online Summit, my nameplate read my legal name, but I was not about to protest. I just bet there were other attendees thinking, “Who is this guy?”

*As an aside, I promise I had friends in real life way back when. It’s just that it was so much easier to share things with someone who didn’t know you before they read anything you had written.

For the past few years, I’ve done a pretty good job at never revealing all of myself. But I’m about to fail miserably at it with the completion of my first novel, Never Been in Love. I’ve shared the Keith Miller quote that “No gentleman ever discusses any relationship with a lady,” but this story needs to be told.

Using myself as the central character, I explore the young, male psyche in regards to love and relationships. I’m by no means a relationship expert, but I hope my experiences (both good and bad) can help you with yours and offer a chuckle or two. I’ll be sharing a chapter in the coming weeks, and to my exes who still read everything I write, rest assured all names and locations will be changed to protect your identities (and in the case of the married woman, my own).

♫ Post Title Soundtrack: Gnarls Barkley — “Open Book”