Barbara's Random Thoughts

Monday, February 20, 2006

Commenting...or not.

My friend Justin has been getting a lot of attention on his blog after being featured on Yahoo 360's most interesting blogs page. It makes me laugh to see all the comments he's getting from total strangers. What's so curious to me is how many people are compelled to comment on a total stranger's blog when they really don't have much to say. I guess it takes a very different personality from mine. I'm a total blog-lurker. I will comment occasionally, if I feel like I have something to say that's significant or at least related to the subject of the post...but usually, I'm pretty quiet. I don't like posting comments that just say "great blog!" or "Me too!"...because, what's the point?

And yet, I've had several conversations lately with people from church who have said they read my blog...news to me, because they never comment. There's a part of me that feels like if you know me and you're reading my blog--comment so I know you're out there! Otherwise it feels like a one-sided conversation...or maybe a better metaphor is eavesdropping. Obviously I don't mind if you read my blog--I'm self-promoting enough to put my blog address in my email signature, for crying out loud--but I do like to know who's out there, reading quietly.

All of this to say that communicating via blogs is weird, and everyone does it differently. And I'm just going to have to come to terms with people who read my blog the way I myself read blogs--quietly.

I realize that this is going to come across as a shameless plea for comments. It's not, really. But don't let that keep you from commenting. Oh, shut up, Barbara.
| posted by Barbara | 8:41 PM