People read this blog. I have no concept of exactly how many. Sure, I have a tracker on the site that offers plenty of details about my “traffic,” telling me how many people logged in from Uruguay on Tuesday afternoon and the average number of minutes a reader in the Isle of Man spends on the site each week. But these stats seem meaningless, random numbers on a computer screen (I’ve never been good at attaching actual meaning to numbers, one of the reasons why I suck at math). So I don’t look at them because it just doesn’t interest me, plus it’s somewhat irrelevant. Twenty readers or twenty thousand, I’ve kept writing regardless. I write for myself, for my friends (half of whom only know what’s happening in my life because of the blog) and for anyone else that feels like clicking over on any particular day.
Hearing from readers is wonderful, a taste of delicious validation that every blogger loves. I’ve met (sort of anyway) thousands of fascinating people, heard incredible stories and gained wisdom from individuals around the world, simply by virtue of writing about my life on the internet. That’s some pretty irreplaceable shit right there. That being said, there’s one pattern to the mail that I’m driven to address. At least once a week, and sometimes as often as five or six times, I’ll get a version of the following message. Gender, age, geographic location, it spans them all, but the content never varies. Rather than comment at the end, I’ve broken the note down into short phrases with responses to each. Do I mean to attack? Not at all - there will be no names mentioned and no direct quotations. Do I mean to offend? What, me? Never. Well, ok, maybe a teeny bit. Here we go:
“Dear Melissa,
Generally I enjoy your blog very much and read it often…” Well thank you. Glad to hear it.
“I find it funny/pertinent to my own life/a good outlet/something to look at when I’m tired of internet porn…” Ok I’ve only gotten that last one once. And to the guy who wrote it: Come on, who gets tired of internet porn?
“But…” Ah ha! I could smell it from the outset - the fatal “but.” Bring on the list of grievances!
“Your last post/first post/post on May 25, 2005/post about dogs/post about cats/post with the word ‘inundate’ in it/post that talked about anal beads/post about your boyfriend/etc. was terrible.”
Alright, two things: 1) I dash off posts and promptly forget about them. This gets me into trouble, particularly if I run into someone I pissed off six months ago by writing about them. If you’re referring to anything in the archives, there’s a good chance I have no clue in hell what you’re talking about. 2) If you’re writing about my most recent post, it’s definitely still fresh. Congrats on successfully insulting me.
“While your stuff is usually good, that post was stupid/vapid/offensive/chick lit (oh the horror!)/too feminazi/not feminazi enough/boring/badly written/made me want to throw myself out a window/etc. etc. etc.”
Hmmm, ok let me get this one straight: I, a 28(ack!)-year-old neurotic ex-lawyer in Manhattan, woke up one morning, staggered to my computer and smashed out something that wasn’t exactly in line with your personal 67-year-old/19-year-old/46-year-old management consultant/kindergarten teacher/Maori tribe leader Nebraskan/Irish/Senegalese tastes? There’s a massive shock. Yes, I am deliberately emoting sarcasm. The fact is, the chances are astronomical that one day, I’m going to write something you don’t like. Something you hate, even. Something that makes you want to rip a steak knife through your computer screen just so it can never again display such verbal horrendousness. This is somewhat inevitable. This is why I write the blog. This is why I love my readers.
“So I felt the need to tell you that, unless you stop doing whatever it was that bothered/annoyed/offended me in the first place, you’ll lose a loyal reader.” Well, that is unfortunate. As I said before, I do love my readers, if for no other reason than a lot of them are even crazier than I am. But I’ll let you in on a secret: your words are completely useless. Save your breath, or your typing energy as it were. No matter how great the offense, no matter how deep the feeling, there is no fucking way I’m going to change what I write or how I write because of what you think. Sure, maybe one post was crap; it happens - I’m not gonna apologize for it (getting paid almost jack shit for something = not having to answer to anyone. It’s a beautiful thing). But if you liked most of them in the past, chances are you’ll like more in the future. And if you don’t, well, there are only about, oh what, 158 million other blogs to choose from? Something like that. Who even knows. I’ll be sorry to see you go, but hey, such is life, I’ll keep on writing. And maybe in a few months you’ll miss me, and click over just to see what I’m up to these days, and go back to catch up on posts you missed, and then come back the next day and the next, until one morning BAM, I piss you off even worse than the last time, and you vow “Never again!” Just think about this post before you write me yet another email telling me so.