When I put this blog together, I never imagined that anyone would actually read it, beyond a few friends (you know, those friends you mention it to so you can feel good about having had some traffic?).
I’ve discovered, however, that even having a few friends reading it is fucking stressful. Now I understand why one comrade always talked to ‘my two readers’. Because having more than one or two (though I would argue that even having one or two is strange) readers puts all sorts of new worries into my head.
Do I have enough ideas to post about? Oh gods, I was funny; am I going to have to be funny on a regular basis? Is there a formula I can use to calculate the exact number of humourous posts I need to supply before I disappoint everyone? Am I being too depressing? Because I can drone on and on about crap, but then I’d just depress the hell out of myself.
I had a livejournal years ago (technically I still have it, but it’s LJ; enough said), and I can confidently say that I never had more than a single person read it, and that one only did because we were nano buddies. I’ve also run blogs out of blogger and other sites, none of which got any traffic except the one friend I told to go visit.
So my experience, to date, is that blogging is an online journal that no one reads, so it’s a safe outlet for blurting out all the stuff in my head, so that I can look at it and learn things about myself. Will I start censoring myself? Oh gods, will I have to defend something I’ve posted because sometimes I just throw words out there?
On the plus side, I now have another topic to write about; blogging and anxiety!
jangled nerves 
Hello comrade, it’s a tough one that one. I’ve had panicky DMs and phone calls saying “Take that down, that has gone way past TMI” before. Don’t worry about it (I know, easier said than done). Remember it is the Internet, we don’t know your real name, we are comrades, and don’t like doxxing and such. I will not reblogg if you would prefer I didn’t but I look forward to more of your posts!
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If I couldn’t do this anonymously, I definitely wouldn’t be able to do it. As awful as some trolls are, the ability to be anonymous on the internet has really helped a lot of us anxious folk!
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There’s a handful of readers on my blog who know who I am IRL (they don’t post though). A good friend of mine is a regular, but it’s because he knows where I’m coming from on a lot of issues and I can freely discuss sexuality and politics with him, so nothing I put would shock him. Aside from that I don’t know people’s real names if they don’t want me to, I just like talking to all the comrades that post 🙂 You get a thicker skin with more blogging I think (this is code for me saying HARTJANGLING BLOG MOAR AND PUT UP SOME OF YOUR WRITINGS). 🙂
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Anxiety really is an evil bastard. /statesbleedinobvious
And i presume you know this intellectually, but the anxiety’s doing its thing, so I’ll say it anyway:
You don’t have to be funny, or try to be. I laffed at the post about showing stuff to your mum cos I’ve been there, and it’s funny in itself, and you described it well. U rite gud.
It’s still your journal, write what the heck you like. Or don’t write when you don’t feel like it! It’s what I said before, feeling you have to write for an audience sucks. Would you rather people just lurked? Serious question, cos I always chatter away in blog comments. But the last thing I want to do is muck up your blogging!
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I’m enjoying the chatting, I just didn’t expect it to happen, lol.
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Yay! Cos I’m enjoying it too.
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The worst thing that will happen is that you will write something really off the wall and people will go “Wow, look at that.”
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Though the weirdest thing that has happened on my blog is that I reblogged a post from another, low profile WordPress blogger, last October I think? good post, about a comrade who found himself too unhappy to stay in this world. All of a sudden awhile back my site stats started picking up substantially, and eventually I realized it was hits on this reblog. It’s over 2000 now and I cannot figure out where it’s coming from, the referrer stats are very low by comparison.
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Oh boy, I haven’t even thought about checking to see how ‘well’ my various posts are doing, lol. I avoid looking at those stats. I just have notifications telling me when I have to approve comments, etc. That’s scary enough!
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I suspect this one is some kind of weird glitch. Yesterday I looked at my view stats for the day and they said I had 26 unique visitors and 56 views on that particular reblog. This hardly seems likely…
WordPress is a little complicated but if you slog around and mess around with it you can figure out how to do all sorts of things, if it suits you. If it doesn’t, that works too 🙂
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