Passing through is easy. Sticking around is hard. Caterina posted an observation about web logs as a “lonely hearts club” that generated a lot of notice on other blogs I read. Metagrrrl responded that she was so right. Shauna responded in a more practical way, noting that It’s hard enough to get someone to return to your site, let alone get them to fall in love with you. No kidding. Relationships in real life are hard enough without the temptation for fantasy fiction. I tend to think that relationships develop with about the same frequency as lightning strikes (which is more frequent than you might think, but not exactly commonplace). It’s just that when they do happen, they generate so much smoke and noise that spectators get envious.
I got hit once, a long time ago in the pre-online journal days. It burned me to the ground; not a pretty picture. Found myself halfway across the country, in fact, alone and torn down. Love doesn’t respect geographical boundaries. But do I write this with the faint hope that somehow lightning might strike twice? Not really. Though romance would be nice, having people visit the page more than once seems to be a more practical goal. However, even that is suspect to a degree, because I’d hate to think that I write purely for affirmation from others. At five or six visitors a day, it’s hardly 10,000 potential dates knocking at my door. It’s not even much of a confirmation that there is something at least something mildly interesting about me.
My interests are far too obscure to attract much of a following. Besides, the stench of desperation cologne refuses to fade; I am forced to be realistic, hoping for friendship rather than romance. I have a developed a few friendships through my ramblings, and that makes it worthwhile enough. Friendships are more valuable over the long haul; my experience with romance suggests that it is mostly comet-like, riding an orbit that has an apogee and a perigee. Sometimes, it travels so far away that it seems like it will never return. I hope that I have enough time left in my stay here that it will come back. It may be a cold dirty ball of ice, but it sure is beautiful to experience.
The orbit spends more time in the real world than the cyber world. Placing your hopes in journaling as a place to develop relationships seems downright foolish. But I believe in writing as a way of improving yourself, of working out your thoughts, and I can’t help but feel a tinge sometimes when I read thoughts that are close to my own. But my memories make me far more wary of thinking that someone might find me this way; it certainly didn’t work out well the last time. It doesn’t matter, really. When people are struck down by fire, or ice, they don’t have much choice in the matter.
It’s easy to fall in love with words; people are harder. I can see why journals sometimes include the disclaimer: status: single and not looking. I wasn’t looking when it happened to me; disclaimers don’t really help much. Perhaps it would be better to plead pathetically? This would guarantee that people would surf away in disgust. Besides, relationships are not formed publicly, but privately through e-mail.
I’d better get off this topic, before I alienate what little audience I have!
