I have tried not to be too curious about who you are. I don’t want to scare you off. Or call you out. Or do anything to embarrass you. And I certainly don’t want to cause an international scandal of any kind.

But my curiosity causes me to speculate a lot about who you might be.

I first noticed you back in February. You read one of my stories. At first it was just maybe a half-dozen stories. Then two or three here, and eight or ten there.

This, in and of itself, is not usual. A lot of people read my stories, and by a lot I mean less than the number of people who were in my high school graduating class of 1974. I’m not exactly a hot item in the world of bloggers. But I notice when people read.

I have a page on my site that gives me a handful of statistics about my stories. I can see how many times a story is read. How many people read the same story. How many readers throw their sanity out the door and read more than one story.

It’s like a Pavlovian pat on the back. If a story gets 43 views, I sulk. If it gets 200 views, I treat myself to milk and cookies. It’s actually kind of pathetic of me. I shouldn’t care. But it’s hard not to look every now and then to see if my writing has struck a chord with anyone.

The stats don’t reveal the identity of any reader. I can’t tell specifically who they are or where they’re from. I don’t get IP addresses. No one is singled out.

Most of my readers are in the US. Big surprise. I have one or two from Ireland that read every week. Sweden shows up once in a while. Canada. Morocco. It’s really mind blowing to think about somebody on some other continent reading anything I would write. Thank you, whomever you are.

But you, you’re different. When you started reading a few months ago, you dove in all the way. Day after day, I noticed that you were reading my stories. And when you’d visit my site, you wouldn’t read just one story. You’d read 27 stories. Two days later you’d read 18 stories. And on it goes.

All total, since that fateful day in February, you have read 465 stories that include riveting tales of my fishing trips, porch sitting, and food stains. I wish I knew what keeps you coming back.

You live in a province on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. I have never seen the Pacific Ocean. You live in a city packed with millions of people. I get nervous in a room of more than 100 people. Your entire home province is roughly the same size as the rural county in which I live, and in that small space you have 7.5 million neighbors. I have 36,000 neighbors, which leaves room for trees, a creek, and a few owls that hoot at night.

Yet somehow, we have connected. Or, at least, you have connected with me.

I’ve always thought it unfair that my readers know a lot more about me than I do about them. But, I only have myself to blame for that. You don’t write about yourself. I’m the one who writes about myself. A lot. Maybe too much.

Lord knows why anyone on the other side of the Pacific would want to read my stuff. Sometimes I wonder if you are originally from here, somewhere on this side of the ocean. Maybe my stories remind you of home.

It could be that you want to visit here someday. Possibly live here. You’re wondering what life in the good old U.S. of A. is like. You’re using my stories to discover our customs and culture.

Be advised. That’s not a good idea. Please, draw no conclusions based on my stories. I’m afraid you’d be in for a rude awakening. My life is not the norm.

And if you’re trying to learn to read English by using my stories as a guide, God help you. I can’t spell. I can’t remember the rules of grammar. I ain’t got no proper training as a writer.

But something interesting has occurred to me. Since you know me so well, and you’ve read all about my adventures, my flaws, my misgivings, my loves, my faith, and especially my weakness for cake batter; and you keep coming back to read more, there’s a chance that if we ever met, we’d be friends.

I’m confident that we must surely have more than a few things in common. Do you have grandkids? So do I. I’m guessing you like Christmas. Guess what? So do I. Have you ever traveled anywhere and forgotten to pack your underwear? Bingo! Do you spill food on your shirt? You’re my kind of friend.

You should know that I always write with “my readers” in mind. A writer cannot write to a lifeless wall that stares back at him. He can’t throw words out there into thin air thinking that they will make any difference in the world.

I used to think of my sister when I wrote. She was one of my first staunch supporters. God, love her. She believed in me. She told me my stories were good even if they stunk. I miss that she’s gone now.

I have pictures in my head of who might read the words I mangle together. I write to real people. I imagine how they might react to a theme or a sentence or even just one word. There is always an audience around me when I’m alone with my stories.

So, today, you are the audience in my head. You, way over there across the other side of the globe. Sitting at the end of your sofa by the lamp. You’re reading. The glow of your cell phone makes shadows across the furrow of your brow.

The city below you is alive. Like New York, it never sleeps. It is 9am here, but there, it is 9pm. The evening is just beginning to stir. The night is steaming with excitement.

But you choose to stay in. A glass of wine and a good read suits you just fine. It would me, too. My exciting night life is defined by whether or not I fall asleep on my couch before or after 9pm. I think we are kindred spirits.

All I really want to say to you is thank you, whoever you are. I am both mystified and grateful that you find some enjoyment from reading my stories. I am honored. I am delighted. I am still curious a thousand times over as to why and how, but perhaps I do not need to know.

What if someday, we did manage to meet? I’d like that. But we both know that I’m never gonna make a trip to Hong Kong. But if I did, shaking your hand would be on my bucket list.

I’d walk up to you, maybe hug your neck, and then I’d say to you:

“Hello, dear friend.”