Feb 07 2009
Nearly Departed Readers, or How Laura Can Get Her Groove Back
Laura at Catholic Teacher Musings is weeping over the loss of a “follower”. She wrote a heartfelt (and funny) letter to the faithless lover reader. To paraphrase a popular book, and possibly movie, she’s afraid that the unnamed cad is not that into her. (Which strikes me as a terrible double entendre, especially for a married lady like Laura, so that perhaps the writer of said book and/or screenplay should wash his/her/its hands with soap.)
Me, I don’t know who reads this blog any more than I know why spammers find me so captivating. But I would hazard that if Laura felt REALLY bad about losing followers, she could do what I do… play hard to get.
That’s right. Sometimes I go for WEEKS without posting. I leave my readers guessing, “Is she really just washing her hair, or is she off cavorting on Heeler’s site?” That’s the ticket, you know: Make yourself unavailable. I’m certain I read it in several of the “how to get married” manuals that I’ve perused in my spinsterhood swinging single days.
It also helps to have a job which is full of high drama but which professionalism prevents one from posting those stories in public places. Unless one plans to write a book about how one has turned the backwards, dirt-eating cretins into captain-my-captaining, freedom-writing, competition-winning young adults. (In other words, doing what a teacher is paid to do.) Then all bets are off, since one is leaving teaching to become a high-paid consultant at teacher’s conferences.
But I digress.
If you leave the readers hanging, then it’s almost as if you’re dumping them. And they might resent it, but when you come back with something particularly witty, they’ll think, “My! I’d forgotten how droll this blogger is. I may have to trackback.” Even if it’s a brief post, say a book review, it’s all to the good. Then Mr. Fickle Follower may think, “Say, she’s quite the out-and-abouter! Not just throwing clay and molding young minds, but reading books of more than 160 pages!”
I believe this is why ex-boyfriends are also plaguing me attempting to “friend” me on Facebook. Even after all these years - in one case 20 – my sheer obliviousness aloofness makes me one hot number.
Oh…that’s the secret huh.
I’m just too easy.
Thanks for the tip.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Well, if it doesn’t work, you can try making your blog a subscribers-only feed.
Seriously, though, your post was really funny.
So THAT’S why you’re so inconsistent with your blogging!!!
However, now that I know you’re on Facebook, all bets are off…
Alas, Kasia, as you may vaguely remember from your far-off days as a singleton, the unmarried woman of a certain age has to employ all the tricks and trifles to keep interest. (Except duct tape. I utterly draw the line at duct tape, even if it means paying a fortune for manufactured whalebone and pleather.)
The trick with Facebook is that I know so few of my Internet friends’ real names, so I’ll block people named Hortensia Gonzalez but I’ll continue to swap stories with someone whose nom de ‘net is “MamaLatinaSuave”. It’s a sure bet, though, if someone has a familiar last name (familiar in the family sense).