As much as I’m loathe to blog about blogging, something came up today in conversation that I’ve been thinking about for some time now. I’m not quite sure where to start, this whole blogging phenomenon is really quite intriguing, where else can you have such strong relationships with people you’re never likely to meet?
The thing that’s been getting me lately is the sense of loss I’ve been feeling over disappearing blog buddies. I’ve seen this subject addressed a few times, in fact I’ve even seen it written about me! But he thing is, there are quite a number of bloggers who I’ve been friends with, who have either disappeared or simply faded away, and of course there are those who go and come back again, continually! What I don’t understand is how deeply you can be affected when a blogger that you’ve had a longish relationship with decides to call it a day. I think it’s because through words and photos you’ve been part of their life for a while, and now you’re not.
The more I think about it, the more a picture starts to emerge of blogging as a whole. Like any activity, there are always a certain number of people who start at the same time, and that in itself creates a common bond. And like any activity it seems to have a lifespan defined by those who partake in the activity. Those who are roughly in the same blass (blog class) go through shared experiences, and after a period everyone graduates. Some follow a different path and move away, some maintain friendships and some are never heard from again.
There seems to be two distinct types of bloggers, a) those who are interested only in writing their posts and, b) those who are interested in writing their posts and being part of the interaction they generate . While we all start out with visions of Pulitzer prize winning posts, many of us end up being attracted the community aspect that blogging can create, but it’s those in group (a) that seem to last longer.
So while I was thinking about it, I thought of the evolutionary process that I’ve I’ve gone through (mostly milestone events), I’ll list them, you may have had the same experience (although maybe not in the same order).
- Discovering what blogs are.
- An interest in blogging.
- Initial participation through commenting.
- The creation of a blog.
- The first post.
- The first comment you get.
- Someone links to you.
- You’re added to a blogroll.
- You’re tagged for a meme.
- Someone sends you an email, as opposed to a comment.
- The first time you get an award.
- You send an email, as opposed to a comment.
- The first time you give an award.
- A blog buddy stops blogging.
- You think about stopping.
- You get a big response saying you should stay.
- Your head swells to the size of a basketball.
- You keep posting.
- The first time you’re dropped of a blogroll.
- You wonder where all those people who begged you to stay have gone.
There was a group of about 20 or so people who started blogging around the same time I did, of that group only about 5 still blog regularly, some have gone forever while some post every couple of months. Sometimes I just can’t help but feel like everyone has left the party and I’m still sitting here, left behind and wondering what the heck happened, and where did everyone go; and feeling rather melancholy about it all.
Of course, there are the other, newer bloggers that do come into your little corner of the blogosphere, and some of them become good friends too, but it’s just that little bit harder to relate, because while they’re all excited about being tagged, and in turn are eager to tag you, you just can’t help appearing to be a little arrogant or a little aloof by giving a big ‘ho-hum’ to it all.
Now before the comments start… this is not a post telegraphing my intention to quit blogging, nor is it a post written to elicte sympathy comments, it’s simply a post outlining what I’ve been reflecting on lately. If there’s anything that this post was written for, it is to expresss my surprise at how deep the sense of loss is when a blog buddy calls it quits.
Then of course there’s the blog buddies that you used to have a relationship with, but for whatever reason doesn’t seem to be there anymore despite both of you still blogging regularly, that’s a different kind of sadness. And a different post…
The Original Dingo 
I know exactly what you are talking about and your milestone list is pretty accurate. I’ve been blogging almost a year and it’s only recently that I got involved in the email thing. It;s a bit strange at first but now I have a couple of new cyber friends and been invited to France ad the USA. I’m a bit unsure about doing that as it isn’t like it’s just a car journey away if you find you have bugger all to say to each other in person!
As always you have managed to hit the nail on the head. When I started blogging almost 2 yrs ago now it was with the sole intention of keeping in daily contact with Sam and Becs. At that time I only really knew about the foodie blogs again, because of Sam. Then after getting a few comments I became cyber friends with a small band of bloggers many who now rarely blog like LMM, enidd, sally and eric (I never could find out what happened to him!). It was really through Fun Mon that my horizons expanded. However, since Beccy has virtually stopped posting and Sam has greatly reduced her input and so have you and many others, I fully understand the sense of loss you spoke about!
Chris – Yes, eric was one of the more mysterious cases, and enidd is becoming one.
your class analogy is spot-on, WT.
(and your bit about rolling your eyes at the newbies getting excited over awards and tags really made me laugh. it’s so true! everything you wrote is true!)
i think maintaining a blog is pretty hard. it takes a lot of thought. it takes a bit of time. you have to love to write. but you’re right that when people fade away like that, it does hurt the ones left behind.
you know, blogs are like letters. and there is a long, long history that goes back far before blogging of epistletory friendships, relationships and romances.
words are powerful. the written word is powerful. of course these blog relationships are real (despite doug’s assertion that all bloggers are really just frat boys in a dorm room). so when the relationship ends abruptly, the pain is real, too.
Another pheonmena I’ve noticed with you is that I can’t keep track of which type of blog you’re using..you’ve gone from Blogger to WordPress to something else…which I don’t know what it is…I think I started around the same time you did, and I, too, ffel that sense of comradei…(spell that would, you?)…and where else would I have found out what an elispse is?….
I guess the thing is….on the blog, we can be whoever we want to be! In real life we pretty much have to be ourselves. So in effect, some of us will naturally come across as ourselves. while others may try to be what they “want” to be! I know for myself, I hold back just a little because my family read my blog! But having said that Im pretty much the weirdo that I portray! (scary NO?) I also was one of the ones who blog hopped before starting my own blog (I do believe it took me two years or so!) I guess my main fear was when I started to make “real” friends (Yes Karmyn, blog friends are REAL people too!) I was utterly amazed. There are people out there who I really like!
Funnily enough in my case the blog friends who seem to go wayward for a while, whenever I think about them enough, they drop by and let me know they are still alive, just busy living! Go figure! WTF! Isn’t blogworld the only way to live???
He he! Having said that! Stop whinging and get your butt down here! I do believe we have an appointment with tequila and lemons, maybe a little salt????? Oh and then you might like to pay some bills! Just sayin’ don’t want to get you into trouble or anything! (I am so dying to meet YDW, anyone who puts up with you must be pretty cool!)
Now shut up and keep blogging!
All true. But isn’t the point of any class that you eventually graduate and move on? I feel like my blog was primarily created to be there during a particular time in my life when I was working through a shit load of grief. All the other fun, community stuff happened too, but it was there so that I could rant about canceling auto insurance or deal with feeling conflicted about inheriting a house and hating it at the same time.
In that way I guess it was just a tool I used to fix some things, and when those things were fixed well enough, I didn’t need it anymore.
I like what laurie said. Blogs are like letters. I miss the camaraderie I had with you and Jenny and Marnie. Some of my favorite memories of that blog are our blog ‘wars’. But all of us have graduated and moved on, in our own ways. Getting it back would be like an awkward 80’s reunion movie where everyone’s a little too old to play the teenager they used to be.
On the upside, I’ve just left you a post-length comment. You’re welcome.
ps: I said tool. Heh.
It’s funny, but I was reflecting on this myself just the other day as I was reading back over my own blog. I haven’t posted anything in over a month, hadn’t been around to read other folks, and I discovered that I’d really been missing it. And I can come back and see everyone, but it’s not quite the same. Good, but not quite the same.
Damn! I feel like it’s high school graduation all over again. I can remember that day so well–how much we all looked forward to it and then how scared we were the closer it came and how very sad we were to be leaving a place that at one time we couldn’t wait to get away from. Life is just full of those moments, isn’t it? Every change and move away from a group is so hard, even if you know it’s time to move on or that you’ve outgrown the group.
Even though I think I’ll keep blogging for quite a while longer, I’ve seen changes with it as well. There are bloggers who used to visit me regularly who have dropped off, and I have stopped visiting quite a few blogs regularly as well. There isn’t time for me to read every blog in my list every day! Fun Monday was fun for a while, but the list became so long and it was taking me three days to get through reading them all and then I missed some of the other blogs I wanted to read. Lately there are just a few blogs that I visit every day without fail. The others I try to keep up with as best I can, but what I read each day really depends on the mood I’m in and the type of post I’m looking for.
Crap. I have fuzzy brain from allergies and I can’t remember where I was going with this. Well, there you have my thoughts in all their rambling glory.
Since I have only been blogging since November, I can only relate to the good stuff, and it is all still exciting, but I am not looking forward to losing people, for whatever reason. I know I would be very sad. It is strange how close you get to some bloggers, they do feel like REAL friends and though I have plenty of friends in my off the computer world, I still love my blogger friends too.
You’re so perceptive. It always surprises me when you write something thoughtful and serious. I’m used to dog stories and videos, strange observations, or maybe some cat porn.
I haven’t been posting much. Life gets in the way sometimes. I read most every day, some 50 blogs, and I miss it when I don’t get around to it for whatever reason. While I love keeping up with you and my other favorites, I find less to write about lately, and less of an urge to write. I never was a daily blogger, anyway, but I used to feel guilty if I didn’t post every few days. Obviously, I’ve gotten over that.
It never occurred to me that I might be missed by someone out there I’ve never met.
Nice post.
Once again I was thinking about something (to the point that I couldn’t sleep at 6:00am, which is unusual for me), turned on the computer, came here, and, lo and behold, you happen to have a post about it.
I can’t even tell you how many dozens of times that has happened. We’re from different generations and on different continents, but sometimes I swear there is telepathic communication going on, LOL. And I think we are equally psychotic, LOL. We have more in common than you know.
Having a connection/friendship like that is something I don’t get to experience “in real life” very often (due in part to being tied down with a “special” child, and due to the DH I have). I started blogging after keeping journals for years. I discovered blogging, started leaving comments on some blogs, felt bad that I didn’t have a blog for people to link back to, and then decided to do some of my journaling online as an easy way for friends in family to keep up to date on us. The grandmas and friends (who’ve become scattered across the country) like this convenient way of catching up on us, and seeing photos of the kids (they don’t comment, they email me instead). But the real perk of blogging has been the sense of connection and friendship with others, both close to home and around the world. Honestly, it keeps me going.
Yes, it is very sad and painful when a blogging friend leaves your life. I see Erik mentioned above. I used to email with him and enjoy his blogs, and then, poof, suddenly he was gone. No reponse by email anymore. I like to think he is just busy living, but I miss him. Blogging friends, whether you ever meet them or not, become every bit a part of your life as “real life” friends. Sometimes even more so. I communicate with many of you on a daily basis, but with real life friends only sporadically, since they are busy with their own families.
And now my kids are awake and getting into mischief, and “starving”, so I’ll go for now. But great post, and thank you.
yeah, I’m still here too-wondering if I’ll keep going or not…
Great post Willow Tree! I haven’t been deeply involved in the blog world, I’ve mostly hung around the fringes except for a couple blogs. It took me a long time to comment, and even longer to follow links and make a few blog friends. But the friends I’ve made I consider true friends…they add a lot to my life and I would feel a great loss if they were to disappear from my life.
I think you wrote a touching, eloquent post, and judging from the comments you are getting I think you’ve hit a nerve.
One of my friends once told me he believes that friends have a tendency to come and go throughout your life, that some friends will fade with time, but new friends will come into your life as things in your life change. I don’t know if that makes you feel any better, but maybe it’s the same with blog friends. Some are meant to last and some come into our lives for a time and share something with us and then move on.
I understand EXACTLY what you are saying, of course. I was thinking about this same topic a month or so back….because I realized how differently I felt about comments now then when I first started. I still love getting them, but in a different way.
ANd for the record, okay, blogging friends are REAL friends, Karisma….not just in my head. heh heh
willowtree, you said it so well. and enidd is sorry for being mysterious. it started with an onset of depression – you know about all the things that went wrong. only one of them is fixed. feeling like this makes for pretty depressing posts, so enidd doesn’t write them. she does still read all her blums, but can’t always find the time to comment.
and there’s one thing you didn’t mention – what happens when your blog, started in secret, becomes known to your real-life friends, your family and the people you work with? it limits what you can say.
enidd has been working on a start-up with the man (as you know he’s out of work) and this can’t get back to the company she’s contracting with. (let’s hope none of them read your comments.) most of her more interesting posts would have been about the ups and (mostly) downs of meeting vcs in silicon valley.
still, perhaps an enidd post should be forthcoming.
I am one of those other/new bloggers since I started my blog last July. I found blogging accidentally. I started mine to post some pictures and freeze some thoughts of mine in time (mostly for my kids). My father had just passed away. I found some relief expressing my feelings. I have enjoyed my own little space that I created. Then I discovered comments and that was nice. I’ve met this little group of friendly people that I can visit. I have been slacker lately but I’m not gone by any means, just slowed down. I so agree with your comment. I lost a blogger friend the other day, she announced she was leaving and did: poof! I hadn’t known her very long but felt very connected to her. I so agree with this post of yours and your blog is one I enjoy reading.
I’d like to add a few to that list:
The first time someone sends you something
The first time you send a blog friend something
The first time you dream of a blogger
The first time you talk in “real life” about a blogger as if they were a “real life” friend, often followed by:
The first time you have someone less techy or unfamiliar with blogs look at you as if you’re a pathetic nerd for thinking your internet friend is a real friend
One of the things that bugs me the most about my disability in relation to blogging is that I can’t participate enough in the community by e.g., leaving comments on the blogs I read or respond to others’ comments on my posts, which makes my community a bit more one-sided – I firmly consider myself blog friend to many (even though they may not be quite aware of it and wait, that’s also called ‘stalker’, innit? ;)).
Good post with lots of food for thought.
p.s. and yes, I have dreamt of you. Belle had disappeared and I was helping you look for her. Amazing how the countryside’s so accessible in your neck o’ the woods.
hmmm…I remember the first comment I recieved from a non IRL friend or family member…it was so exciting…and my first “tag”…but I am still a new blogger, so I still feel like I am in the honeymoon stage. I do agree with your post and everyone’s comments though…it feels sad in a weird way when a blog I regularly visit just disappears, or goes private….
The thing about blogging is sometimes it makes me tired. If you go more than a day or two without posting, people start emailing you and asking why you’re not posting. Pretty soon, you feel like it’s a job instead of a way to blow off steam or just share your twisted thoughts with the world.
As far as blog buddies go, obviously we tend to read blogs that are written by people with personalities similar to our own. So it’s easy to develop a relationship, but hard to remember you only really know the person as he or she is reflected through his or her writing. So while I come across in print as witty and charming and fabulous, in reality I’m….well, ok, witty and charming and fabulous, but not everyone is!!
Let’s face it, blogging is just weird but I love it!!!
Deep thoughts by Willow Tree!
You have captured it quite well and it has been something I have been thinking about a lot.
Eerily enough my hubs reposted his first post which was on topic to this one. Weird.
I have grown quite close to a few bloggers and there are some that I would like to be closer buddies with too. Anyway, I love this post!
One thing I have realized just recently, for me personally, is that even just reading the posts of my faves helps me get through each day, not to mention the back and forth comments and friendships formed. I enjoy the community aspect and I wouldn’t want it any other way!
I wonder what conversation started you on this train of thought. Hmm.
You’re absolutely right about all of it. It hurts when someone you’ve developed a blogging relationship with disappears and you never know why. If it were the “real world” there would always be the chance of running into them in the supermarket or seeing their mom at the bank, but in Blogville that’s not a real option. So you’re just kind of left hanging with no real answers.
And the community aspect of it is really well put. We do all have a community. I’d rather have a community than a “readership”, and I suspect you would too. It might hurt a little less, though. It’s easier to lose a reader than a friend.
I’m always intrigued by the people who you think you have a relationship with who just disappear. I’ve had several of those the last few months. People who tell me I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread and then just vanish. I know they’re still blogging because I see their comments other places, but obviously they don’t want to play with me anymore. It can be hard not to take it personally.Hell, maybe I should take it personally.
Really nice post, Peter.
just for the record, i like lene’s additions to your list. but i have never dreamed about a blogger.
I’m rather new to blogging having just started to both read other blogs and write my own in January. It began as a way to blow off steam about my work and my life as a mother of a profoundly disabled child. It was also a method I used to get me through winter here which was both lonely, with my husband being away and just plain hard while shut in this house on my days off with my daughter.
You were one of the first people to leave comments on my site and I remembered how thrilled I was that someone out there actually cared enough to say something in return. I no longer felt so isolated. I believe this is the community you speak about.
I try to be an interactive member of this community. I like leaving comments but find it difficult to elicit the same from others. I know that quite a few people read what I write and don’t comment but I no longer worry about that. They are reading.
A couple of weeks ago, a blogger I read, wrote a post titled Good Bye. Just like that, she up and quit. She always wrote short but provocative posts about nursing. No lead up to quitting, she just stopped. At least she said good bye. For the record, I hope you don’t stop writing, I like reading what you have to say.
I hear ya.
Peter,
You certainly have written an insightful post about blogging, and you have highlighted some provocative events that occur in this evolutionary process of blogging. To me blogging itself has evolved, in a way somewhat similar to the process that some of us may have experienced in sending and receiving e-mails especially personal e-mails.
When I was first on the Internet, (maybe in 1995) I woke up every morning to read my e-mail messages. At that time, these were personal messages to and from friends and relatives. As time passed, people became infatuated with sending e-cards…then folks preferred to send the long string of ubiquitous forwards. The first forwards were fun and funny; eventually, the forwards became less fun. There were the spiritual forwards implying eternal damnation if the message was not sent to on five people, and the forwards promising that Bill Gates would send me money, and other lies about the president, Oliver North, and a multitude of other famous people. Although I tried to keep sending friendly personal messages as a way to keep in contact with my friends, many of the correspondents followed a different path.
I definitely fit into group b. Although writing an award winning post would be fine, I like the community aspect of blogging. That is one of the reasons that I visit the Dingo everyday. Of course, I enjoy the humorous, informative, and thought-provoking commentary of the Dingo authors, but the interaction among your adoring fans is great fun. Thank you for providing a place for us all to meet.
I agree with everything you said and your commenters, also. I know that I talk about all y’all in my real life and folks at work are amazed that I have friends in the UK and Australia and Ireland and Germany and Canada and across this amazing country of mine, etc. I do count y’all as friends and I think that is part of why I started to take you guys for granted.
Thanks for the reminder, bubba, and for your kind words about my Buddy.
It’s the wee hours of the morning (not sleeping well), and I popped back in to read your comment thread (when I first read this, there were only about four. Clearly you’ve hit a nerve.
I’m too daggum tired to share thoughts just yet, but interestingly it’s the first time I noticed at your new spot, that I’m gone from your list of reads! Ouch! Even though I knew it, and especially because I’m not commenting much here (ANYWHERE), I’m not offended at all, b u t, it’s still weird to notice, ya know?
I’ll be back when I’m fully awake :).
Robin – I still read your blog, I just didn’t think you were into blogrolls.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I am not a blogger, but merely a lurker who admires the work and effort that it takes to amuse and entertain the masses on a regular basis. I sometimes think, “Well maybe I could write a blog too, because so many others do it, it can’t be THAT hard.” I all the material needed. A dog, a family, crazy friends and annoying relatives, oh yeah, …a computer too! Then I realize that I don’t have nearly enough creativity to do such a thing and more importantly lack the committment it takes to continue on with the project.
It is a big committment of time, creative energy, and technological savvy. I understand how a person can “burn out” or even after time, just lose interest. At this point in my life, I’m just too lazy to do anything but admire the work of others.
Maybe you should just admit to yourself that some days it’s a joy and some days it’s a chore to blog. Take a vacation and recharge your batteries. Your ambivilent guilt is just a sign of how important these relationships have become for you. That’s good, because even though the relationships are “virtual”, they are genuine and significant.
I am convinced if one were to peek through the cracks of the one who calls himself Willowtree, a person could see a man who is gregariously social hiding behind a country curmudgeon persona. Part of you is ready to chuck it…..the other part of you doesn’t want to let the people who read your work down……..
I can remember the first comment you left at my blog, what? Over two years ago? Wow…
I blogcrushed you immediately.
It’s hard to believe that much time has passed. Way back then, I was the most committed commentor on the planet–it’s what earned me that distinction when you still wrote under OUAB. You know I don’t care for “drive by” comments, so I always appreciated those who took time to READ the post and respond thoughtfully (like your readers here 🙂 ).
Since then, though, I realized how much of my life was spent HERE. I knew more about my blogging friends than my friends IRL. It wasn’t healthy. Add to that, the larger Fun Monday grew, the more difficult it was to comment to everyone (as others have already mentioned). I tried for as long as I could, then I realized I would’ve spent the majority of my blogging time on that alone! At the expense of reading other types of posts that challenged me in ways that a) helped in my writing, or b) “grow” intellection/emotionally/spiritually, etc.
Something had to give.
It was my blogging community :(. And it has been painful, to say the least. I LIKE my blogging friends and I miss ’em.
A few still read me, though I am not a very good reciprocal blogger these days–Chris is the best (thanks Chris!), but Karmyn, Pamela, Claudia, Heather and even Susan still check in (my oldest blog buds). And I DO read more than I comment, I just skate thru my reader when possible, pull up 2 dozen pages at a time, and “get to them” when I’m able.
I’m trying to write with more intention, so that’s where I spend the bulk of my time; I love Poetic License and support those who take part in that; writing poetry and publishing photographs also takes time, and those two things feed me. Again, though, it’s at the expense of a closer knit community, so…I’m just doing the best I can.
Thoughtful post here, Peter…also the one after this. I’d like to write more, but I’m afraid you’ll shoot me for going on as long as I have. I look forward to hearing more of the convo :).
I’d hate to thought of as a “drive-by” comment-or, but it looks like everyone says all the good stuff before I get here.
Anyhoo, I thought it was a great post. You certainly summed it up correctly and with a lot of heart.
I stopped my blogroll because it never showed everyone I really read anyways. I was just thinking about putting it back up, but hadn’t fully decided yet. NOT that I am on yours or EVER was. And that’s okay. (pout)
Kidding, of course. :-O
Wow WT, your post is spot on and so are all these comments. I don’t think there’s anything left for me to say. Having been blogging a year I’ve seen a few disappear and fade away and been so concerned. Walks Far Woman just went and no one seems to have heard from her. I still wonder about her and hope she’s ok. I think one way we move away from some of our first contacts is that the longer we blog the more we find our niche and people who are more like us. I don’t think it’s a deliberate thing. It’s like those first few weeks at school when we tentatively reach out for friends, but only after we really get to know people do we realize where we fit, where common interests, thought processes, aspirations etc lie, and we’re naturally drawn to these people.
It does annoy me a little when non bloggers so easily dismiss our blog buds, but I have a feeling I might have been one of them once, so I get it.
In the end I came to blogging as a creative outlet to get me writing again. I’ve gained this and more and I’m so glad I did it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have met you you old charmer. 😀
Dear willowtree. Yeah… blogging for me was so much more fun in early 07. I don’t know why…. I just haven’t been able to muster the continual motivation since then. Perhaps life in Ukraine stopped being a novelty and became… Life. And everything that goes with it.
I was sad to return from my hiatus and see that Melissa had totally disappeared. Her blog erased from the wold. Boo hoo. I miss her.
Even if I don’t write, though, I still read.
You should write a memoir. Not about blogging! About your two trips around the world – one time forwards, the other time backwards. Or is that the other way around..?
I came over after your comment on Hineykapoople and did some browsing. I liked this post and the comments. I have been doing Blog 365 and for the most part have kept up okay. I ran into trouble reading blogs when life took over when Sirdar’s parents were in the car accident. They are doing well now and things are getting back to normal.
Another aspect of community that I find really cool is the people who are acquaintances; the people you recognize when you go to someone else’s comments or blog roll. They are the people who I have visited on occasion through fun Monday or after they have commented somewhere or because they are always visiting and commenting where I am. Like you and I both visit Hayden and comment there as well as some other places. For time and interests and commonality, there are people we are in contact with regularly through blogging, yet don’t read one another’s blogs regularly. I love that part of blogging too; going to a blog and seeing familiar names in the comments column and getting to know a person just a little through that. Of the 34 comments above, there are only 8 blogs I haven’t seen or visited in the past; and I don’t come here very often.
I think you’ve said it precisely. I thought long and hard about quitting and it was actually a tough decision. I like the community. I like the comments. I like that someone is reading what I have to say although it is fewer someones than it used to be. I like having a space of my own.
Yet… it started to feel like an obligation and not an enjoyable hobby. Then, when I did post and my readership had dropped dramatically, I took it personally.
So after much to and fro, I decided to stop blogging. I posted my last post and felt…relief. Do I miss it? Not yet. Maybe I will miss it and maybe I will blog again but not any time soon.
Catching up on blog reading and just had to say this is an excellent post! I feel I’m still a fairly new blogger but have already formed some great friendships through blogging. Like a friend who lived close and then moved away, I would miss a blogging friend terribly if they quit blogging. Probably because I can’t stand most people so the one’s I DO like, I like to keep around. I know it’s hard to believe but I haven’t even thought of any of the blogs I read quitting. Until now!
Terrific, thought-provoking post, Peter!! I can’t even add anything that hasn’t been said already. Life gets in the way of my blogging from time to time and my Blog365 commitment is shot all to hell, but hey, I do the best I can! And I really do miss it when I can’t. And I really miss people that just disappear! It is amazing how we become a part of each other’s “blog family” / community. You have to write a book. It would be a best seller.