Saturday, October 28, 2006

Comments

When I first started blogging I thought it was so cool to get comments on my posts. It felt like someone actually was acknowledging me as a person, and a person they cared enough about to converse with. Or, if not that, at least acknowledging I'd said some something worthwhile, or funny, or .... I kind of gave up on that idea by rereading the tag line on my blog and reminding myself that I'm just talking to myself, so if I want comments, I should just leave comments for myself.

I was talking to someone else about comments on blogs. She felt sad that no one commented on her blog. I then asked her, "Well, how often do you comment on the blogs of others?"

Then there are the people, usually my age or older, who think if they leave a comment someone will steal their identity and they'll end up in the poor house due to credit card fraud.

Over the two plus years I've been blogging, I've had a number of comments deleted that I've put on other people's blogs. I can think of about five or six times this has happened. Only once did the person explain to me in an email why they deleted my comments. I suppose if I were to express a touch of cynicism inside of me, I'd say people mostly want flattering or sympathetic comments, your basic feel-good stuff. I guess if I'm going to play the commenting game, I'd better brush up on my interpersonal skills.

6 comments:

Thainamu said...

Oh, Thainamu, that was a great post!

Freethinker said...

You are talking to yourself.

I like getting comments.

Ma Hoyt said...

Okay, you made me laugh.

I must say I've found it really frustrating sometimes, too. One doesn't like to beg for comments, after all.

But what annoys me is that I get the impression some people think they've been in communication with our family, just because they've read the blog.

We're each (them and me) living in our own little fantasy worlds.

But I've come to the conclusion that it's good therapy for me, and it may even be good practice for something down the road....

So I'll just continue to amuse myself :-)

(plus, if you put pictures in--like you and I do from time to time--relatives you don't get to see can keep up on the news. And I think it's important to give the college kids the illusion that life goes on as normal when they are not here...you know, keep up the pretense that we don't miss them)

Thainamu said...

There are services and software to turn one's blog into a book. Maybe we should start blogging with that idea in mind. Kind of like those serialized novels that they used to do in the olden days.

Ma Hoyt said...

True.

But then we might be tempted to second-guess everything....like, do I really want to post a picture of a dead mouse on the blog?

Life gets so complicated when one has to consider weighty matters such as that.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure what proper commenting etiquette is as far as when you stop responding to commments, but since we got Nathan to reconsider his post, I felt the job was done there. :)