More than once, it has occurred to me how blogging is entirely based on this narcissistic presumption that one actually has something interesting to say. Why go to the effort make your writing public if no one is going to read it? I’ll admit that this sometimes bothers me, because I cannot abide the type of people that constantly need to be the center of attention or whose favorite topic of conversation is themselves. I fear that in keeping a blog, I end up placing myself with these categories of people. Most of the time though, I can move beyond these insecurities about why I keep this blog, and I’m actually quite glad these applications exist.
I’m usually loathe to admit this publicly, but I’ve been keeping a Livejournal since senior year of high school. Livejournal (for those who don’t know), is just another blogging client (although it allows a bit more privacy because it enables you to limit your reader base only to chosen Livejournal members). Livejournal has a bit of a reputation for being a haven of teenage angst, and it’s probably true that my own blog there began as such. However, it proved to be the number one way of keeping in touch with high school friends, and with two exceptions, the only people I still keep in touch with from high school are those who also have Livejournals.
When we finished high school, my friends and I all dispersed across the country, began separate lives at separate schools. With time zone differences, class and extracurricular schedules to coordinate, and admittedly a little bit of laziness it was hard to make time for phone calls (infrequency of conversation necessitates long blocks of time to adequately catch up with each other). But when you write something and just post it online, whoever wants to read it can do so on their own time. And the comment feature of these sites allows a blog to maintain the dynamic nature of a conversation.
Anyways, the reason this all came up is that the other day, I spent a considerable portion of my afternoon catching up on the blogs various friends of mine are writing. During college, other than my friends on LJ, I knew very few people who kept blogs, and (for previously mentioned reasons) it always felt like a bit of a geeky thing to do. But when I graduated college, I started this blog. And a significant number of my friends followed suit. And again, I am glad that they have.
I kind of wonder if maybe this form of friendship maintenance seems less sincere to the older crowd. A while back I was discussing the merits of Facebook with a friend who had deactivated her account – I was telling her I like the site much more now that I’ve left school, because it is so easy to keep up with my friends. I mean really, you don’t even have to talk to them! All it takes is a click of the mouse and you have pictures, gossip, know where they are working, whom they are dating….Which was why she didn’t like the site. She felt like you couldn’t sort out your “true” friends. And I agree to some degree – I think I would have lost touch with a lot of those high school friends had they not had Livejournals. And my really close friends, I still talk to them outside of blogs or Facebook. But also am glad that these types of websites allow me to keep up with people that otherwise would have fallen wayside in my mind. At least this way, a few years down the road I won’t be wondering whatever happened to Susie Q and regret not having her email address or telephone number.
