Losing readership wouldn’t be the end of my world.

This is in response to the commenter who confidently said in response to my posts about trying to clarify and in many ways, justify my lifestyle: “…..but let me tell you, if you continue to respond to everyone who doesn’t agree with your viewpoint, you are going to lose readership pretty quickly”.

Note: I’m not trying to target the commenter who had some very nice, and positive things to say to me in the first half of her comment, but that above sentence bothered me for some reason and I just want to get the reflection off my chest.

Am I not supposed to be bothered by those comments?

Without a doubt, they’re trivial. I mean, who really cares what other people think about the apartment that I am living in and they are not?

However, it isn’t so trivial when it’s many comments like that, over and over again. Not often, mind you… but occasionally I’ll get zinged.

I am not a big, well-oiled, machine-run blog that needs this blog to make money to survive.

I am not a corporation that needs to have a perfect blog out there without typos, grammatical errors and political minefields to avoid.

I am only doing this for fun. Me. One person running the whole show, and no one else.

I don’t even really allow guest posts because I want the content to be 100% ME. Cawdjer was the only exception talking about his experiences with Voluntary Simplicity.

But as a blogger, you come across people start trying to make you feel ashamed of not being politically correct….

Or for not being a saint because I write negative things and have bad days like a normal human girl…

Or for not writing what they wanted to read and start criticizing what you say or do but not in a very constructive way…

And if you ran a blog, you will know that it feels personal, like an attack on you, even if it isn’t and was just some one-off comment that wasn’t meant to be rude.

It’s hard to tell, when it’s just words on a screen. All we have, are the way we come across in words. Without smiles, without sincere or sarcastic tones and without seeing each other’s faces.

Then being a blogger and doing all this supposedly fun stuff, stops being fun.

You start having thoughts of quitting and starting a new blog but under a different name.

And many of you are going to say “Well.. you knew what you were getting into when you started writing on the web, and don’t be such a hypocrite!”

True.

I know you’re supposed to have a thick skin if you are going to write your own opinions on the web and have it be a public blog. I mean c’mon, not EVERYONE can agree with me and I don’t expect them to.

There are millions of people out there, and someone at any given point in time will not be happy with what you’ve said, or take it the wrong way, or feel the need to criticize for no reason.

But even when I comment under this alias on other blogs, I criticize with what I have felt is with restraint, tact and diplomacy.

If something isn’t my style or philosophy, I just say so. They don’t have to agree with me – and they clearly don’t. But I try to word it properly and carefully so that they don’t have a chance to take it the wrong way. Most of the time.

So when people don’t seem to take the same approach to their faceless comments online, I take it to heart.

As for losing readership?

Let me start by saying that I am very happy I have a great readership of 1700 strong. I never thought the blog could have ever gotten up to those numbers, considering that I made many mistakes along the way and was just not super blog-organized.

I was in this for myself and not for anyone else, and I’m constantly surprised people can be so interested in what I think are boring things. Like having a futon and sleeping on the floor, or what I spend in stores … or how I feel about.. well, anything.

In the end, I concluded that I don’t really care about readership.

Not that I don’t care about having all of you lovely readers. I mean, I don’t care about the dry, actual numbers of readers, if that makes sense.

I could have 70, and I’d feel happy having even 70 people follow and read my blog. I could have one and still be blogging.

So losing readership because someone doesn’t like the direction I’m taking my own, personal blog? I’m okay with that.

I am fine, even happy if you want to move on to a blog that fits your philosophy and personality better because I am not placing a high importance on numbers.

Life is really too short to be wasting time on Google Reader, to be reading blogs you hate and make your blood boil or your temperature rise.

And I sincerely mean that. I am not for everyone and I respect that.

I can’t please or catch every fish in the ocean, and I don’t plan on doing so. Maybe I’m going to be better off in the long run with a smaller readership. I don’t know.

I have very strong opinions (as repeated.. many times by.. other much friendlier, more neutral bloggers), and I like having other strong opinions coming out in their & other reader’s comments as well.

But sometimes, the opinions come across in the wrong way to me in a comment, and I can’t help but take it personally, and it’s in my nature to try and understand why they felt the need to say that, in that way.

Or to respond to try and clarify what I really meant, because I’m sitting here thinking that I did a poor job in explaining the topic.

Or I came across in a way I didn’t mean to, just by some hastily written, badly chosen words and THEY took it personally as well.

I’m not at the mental state where I can just let it wash and roll off my back like others.

This is ME in a blog, all over every post I take time out to write, including this one, and when I receive very harsh or rude comments directed towards me, personally it does hurt….. even if I wish it didn’t.

For the record, if The Idiot came up to me and said he was an idiot and needed some frank, no-holds barred, honest help…. I’d give it to him in spades. Hell, I’d give him a freaking life plan if that’s what he needed, starting with changing and repairing the relationship he has with his Idiot Wife.

However, if there’s anything I’ve learned about advice in life, is that if it comes unsolicited, you are sure to get burned, even if your intentions were good and if they really needed the advice.

Plus, no one older than me, takes me seriously.

To them, I’m just a girl who is unmarried, doesn’t have a child of her own, and is too young to understand anything about life.