What can I say? I get my kicks from reading about other people-- it's a real life soap opera. I've also learned a lot from blogs-- especially all the child rearing and parenting and birthing and breast-feeding blogs out there. No, I'm not at that stage yet, but I anticipate I will be someday, and hearing about other peoples' experiences is not only interesting in a voyeuristic sense but also informative.
Some of my tendencies to 'spy' (well, if people put it all out there, is it really spying?) are a little less noble though, I'll admit. I used to frequent a message board that was a marriage message board (I can't remember the name now! It was 5 years or so ago...) I had followed links to the site where people were specifically gawking at posts made by teenage brides in a trainweck sort of way. Think of it like Teen Mom but happening in real-time right in front of me! It was impossible to turn away!
I particularly got hooked on a pair of sisters-- The older sister (can't remember her name- -Cathy?) was Catholic and very religious and though she had just turned 20 had already been engaged once previously. That ended and then she married a guy she met online after 3 months of knowing him and intentionally got pregnant within a month of getting married. The second sister was named Stephanie, (17?) and though she was ostensibly very religious and Catholic as well she got pregnant within a month of her sister by her long term boyfriend. She still lived at home and claimed that she would not need any sort of public assistance because she had a job being a nanny and so she'd be able to bring her kid to work with her (she worked for her parents babysitting her 3 year old sister) Of course the people who drew my attention to this pair were rather trollish in their comments on the board and the sisters' journals got password protected after about a year or so... and I never found out what happened next!
I know it's silly, but I totally got hooked on their story! I mean, yes, it had all the hallmarks of being a totally disaster, but I was kind of rooting for them nonetheless. (And hoping they would figure out that birth control was not evil!) And now I'll never know what happens next! It obviously had an impact on me since I'm still thinking about them 5 years later.
There are other blogs I'm similarly addicted to and by all appearances these blogs have significant followers (like 30+ comments on each post!) even though they have a super sporadic posting schedule. From what I can tell this may be due in part to their fairly provocative names? Like- "The sexy blog of sexy things"... even though the author ends up writing more about what she had for breakfast than much else. (I admit to being somewhat jealous of the following though I'm surprised I have any followers at all given how boring my life is! Maybe if I wrote about how Jedi and I got it on 11 times yesterday people would be more interested in what I have to say? Hah.)
Anyway, all that to say that if you post a comment on this blog I do usually follow up by looking at your blog though I don't always post (bad me! I know how comments keep me from feeling I'm posting into the void!) Last night I stayed up until 2 am reading the backlog of posts from just such a blog.
One of the reasons I really used to to this was because I wanted to know what led up to the "Happily Ever After" (Or, at least the wedding, which in Disney-speak is one and the same!) I loved reading blogs that were already "completed" so-to-speak. A blog in which someone had already found the love-of-their-life... but the blog was started long before that moment. I loved reading back and seeing if I could identify that moment when "Random Dude I'm Dating" became "The One." Sadly, I never really found any sort of illuminating pattern I could hold onto as some sort of indication that I would have found my own "The One."
Jedi could very easily have stayed in "Random Dude I'm Dating" territory. Sometimes it scares me to think of how easily I could have (sometimes did) dismiss him-- how I could have missed out on the amazing guy who is now part of my life.
That's part of why I read blogs-- to find those patterns that probably don't exist-- so that I can look for them in my own life. I'd hate to miss out on a good thing.
(And, ok-- The drama. I love the drama too...)
3 comments:
I always have a good laugh when I look at the very beginning of my blog, which was written just a month or so before I found out I was pregnant.
Perspective. I did not have it. :)
Totally feel you on getting locked out of stories, too. Such a bummer. Speaking of which, my regular blog is still on hiatus, but I started a tumblr sort of thing for home design (we're looking to buy a house). It's not terribly interesting, but anyway: breadcrumbs.posterous.com
And, are you on twitter? And if not, why not? :)
I know! I've been missing your blog! Thanks for the link... I keep wanting to follow you on twitter (It was easier when you had the link on your main page, but now I can never find it.)
I'm not on twitter-- I tried it but I found that I just didn't get the lingo-- all those @s and #s... I was totally lost (Felt like an old fuddy duddy!) Plus, I spend too much time on facebook as it is and I didn't need the distraction.
you speak truth! I follow lots of people without officially "following" them, and I get really attached! I know I'm guilty of disappearing now and again, but I really hate it when the people I lurk do it.
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