If you follow my blog, you probably know that my two co-bloggers are named Sue from New York and Sue from Pennsylvania.  AKA Sue and Sue.  I also have a good friend with Type 1 diabetes in Arizona and her name is “Susan.”  Do you see a pattern here?

When you are named “Sue”, you can choose to have a certain amount of anonymity on the Web.  You can be “Sue from Here” or “Sue from There” and no one will have a clue as to your real identity.  Sue or Susan might label you as a Baby Boomer, but it doesn’t allow readers to pick you out of a line-up with any certainty.

On the other hand, when your name is “Laddie”, it is pretty much a waste of time to try to aim for privacy.  Only once or twice in my life have I ever heard of another woman with my name and it’s always been the friend of a friend or the child of a friend of an acquaintance.  When I worked at a retail job, I rarely made it through a day without at least one customer asking about my name.  So I’m out there.  If you know my name, you know who I am.  I come from a family with an assortment of “family names” and sometimes that can be a burden.  Especially when all of the other girls are named Mary, Linda, Patty or Sue.  I gave my children very common names and they have the advantage/problem of being ubiquitous.  But back to the point of the story.

Earlier this week I had a pump-sighting in the wild.  I ran into a new member at the golf course and she was sporting a purple (yes, she’s the flashy type!) Medtronic insulin pump.  She is a bit older and just a “diabetes rookie” with only 30 years under her belt as opposed to my 37 years.  Equally excited to meet each other, we compared stories and promised to get together soon to learn more about each other.  She knows nothing of the DOC (diabetes online community) and I promised to introduce her to a whole new world that lives inside her computer.  And I indicated that I would get her hooked up with some of the local Type 1 meet-ups and support groups.

I probably don’t need to say it, but her name is….Sue.