No Followers?

You know, I think society is conspiring to make us feel bad about ourselves. Or maybe it's just me. Now Blogger has added the "Followers" gadget. Oh Lordy, another thing to obsess about! When MySpace first came out, the kids were competing to see how many "friends" they have. Rhia had something like 400 "friends". I was impressed. Until she told me she didn't know half of them. I refused to get a MySpace just cause I didn't want to have to worry about how many friends I had. Old people do not use MySpace... or they didn't.

I've had a Xanga for years. I had a fair amount of "subscribers", mostly kids. When I wanted to post stuff where the kids wouldn't see (I was doing a lot of theater at the time) I started up this Blogger. The intention was that no one would find me and I could write whatever I wanted. But human nature is such that I started finding other people cause I was curious who was here. I was cool with it being such a few folks but have to admit to occasionally being envious that other people had more "hits" on their site meter than me. Of course, this feeling was usually felt most when my yoga classes ebbed instead of flowed. It's funny, now I find I enjoy my xanga more cause I have made all kinds of really cool friends since it's so not cool anymore for the kids.

I got a Facebook because a marketing site said social marketing was the best marketing tool. (How many times can you fit marketing into a sentence?) I refused to befriend anyone--was strictly business-- but if they befriended me, I would add them. Lots of people befriended me.. trouble was I didn't know some of them. This makes me uneasy. Had a student come to yoga last night that I was very excited about when she befriended me cause I actually knew her and she was over 21!

So now Blogger wants me to put this follower thing up. What if no one follows me? I just can't take the pressure. I can't believe how courageous people are to install this. Or maybe it's just confidence.... or better yet, perspective. Most people that read my site are completely anonymous, I have no idea who you are. Who are you? Would you follow me? Ugh, just the question is pathetic....

This whole teenage "what if I threw a party and no one came?" thing has got to be awful for those teenagers who are constantly seeing other's partying or pretending to and they are sitting at home on Saturday nights. The whole thing is just disturbing. But in a strange way, very connecting. I have friends I keep up with now that I didn't before cause we were too busy... course now the busy-ness is all about trying to keep up other people's green patches and save the rain forest on Facebook LOL!

I don't know. I'm confused on this. And now I'm jealous that I don't have a family tree LOL! Ai yi yi-- what will they think of next?