Was It Something I Said?

Blog bloggety blog.

I’m sure there are few things more boring than reading a blogger write about blogging (unless you’re a blogger yourself), but here goes anyway.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that a blogger whose blog I like to blog – err, read – had added me to his blogroll. A blogroll is, as you may well know, a list of other blogs that a blogger reads and recommends to others. So this guy, who is a terrific writer and satirist, added me to his list. I was surprised, and flattered, since my blog is hardly the sizzling hub of the universe.

Yet, about a week ago, I noticed he had removed me from the list.

I don’t touch my blogroll very often. I usually add blogs to it when the mood hits me, but other than that, I rarely mess with it. It’s not an all-inclusive list of blogs I visit, anyway. It’s just a few names dropped for others to perhaps check out. So blogs tend to stay on that list for quite a while.

I was baffled as to why my site made such a short-lived appearance on his blogroll. This vexed me terribly. I sought an answer by meditating, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and consulting Tibetan monks, yet the reason for my dismissal was too elusive.

As cold sweat lined the wrinkles on my forehead, and creatures from the beyond visited my mind in the quiet of the night, I pondered this question: was it something I said?

I tend to speak my mind. I speak it, I change it, and then I speak it again. It would not greatly surprise me if I ruffled some feathers in the process, especially with some of my political opinions. I also don’t refer to unbecoming words by their first letters – I simply do not see the point. Perhaps it can be too much for some people. In fact, I’m sure it is.

When someone adds us to their blogroll, or friends’ list, or contacts, we don’t very often wonder why. I guess it’s self-explanatory: who wouldn’t want to know us? However, being removed from a list of 800 friends on Facebook can still feel like a slap in the face. Before the Internet, before social networking, if you wanted to not associate with a person any longer, you simply stopped calling them, or writing them, and stopped answering their calls or letters. You no longer popped in for a visit, and if you bumped into them on the street, Saturday was never “good for you” – neither was any other day.

Nowadays, rejection is much more proactive. Relationship statuses change from “married” to “it’s complicated,” and then “divorced” or “single.” Perhaps the reason it’s such a personal affront is because it’s so obviously impersonal. It’s not just between you and them; the whole world becomes privy to that change of status.

Successful bloggers, who have been keeping a blog for a long time, have accumulated subscribers, some of which may have become contacts, or even friends. I would imagine that such success would grant one with at least some confidence. A sense of security; the knowledge that even if one person removes you from his or her virtual life, there are others who still want what you provide.

For a writer, I think, who has not garnered such a following and success, there is a degree of danger in allowing oneself to believe that one is not one’s only audience.

Tagged as: blogging, Internet, Society, Writing