Comment ... or Else

I subscribe to many blogs, and there's quite a range to my subscription list. Various things (and people) interest me, and I'm always looking to widen my range even more.

People have various philosophies on blog commenting. There are quite a number of people out there who have lots and lots of blog readers who never comment (like me). And for some reason this irritates them. They seem to think everyone should comment all the time. Perhaps they're looking for a long dialogue on every blog entry or something. I dunno. But it seems like they've lately all come out and posted things like: "I know there are a lot of people who NEVER comment. Why won't you come out of lurking and comment? Why? Don't you like me? Obviously you like me if you read my blog, so why don't you COMMENT? Please comment before I come out there into the ether and make you comment!"

I feel like they're talking to me. They want me to type some witticism just so they can see a comment. So what do I do? I DON'T COMMENT even with the whole ether threat. Why? Oh yeah, in the threat they make in the above paragraph, they try to justify their threat by saying they need to know who I am so that they can come to my blog and comment.

Why?

I don't need blog comments. (You can certainly comment, argue, debate, agree, tell me I'm stupid, whatever in the comment section.) My ego can handle having 0 comments to every post. Because I will keep posting regardless, and guess what...you don't have to read what I write! It's a simple concept, don't you think? And I don't want someone to read my blog just because I commented on theirs.

I suppose the reason I blog versus why they (the blog comment police) blog is very different. I blog to keep the small shred of sanity I have. They blog to have some sort of internet socialization, which is very cool, but those are two entirely different purposes.

I only comment on blogs if I have something to say. I rarely have anything to say. If one of the blog comment police has a bad day, there are 20 people saying, "Chin up buttercup." So I should come in and comment: "Hang in there!"? We've been through the "hang in there" nonsense, haven't we? If I was a more serious blogger, I would hyperlink that to the blog post that goes with it, but I'm not a serious blogger -> so just trust me that I think that is a completely disingenuous saying.

Better (or worse) yet, if I write some stupid saying on one of these blog comment policemaen, what if that person reads my blog and says "hang in there" to me? I will be so confused if that person is just saying a disingenuous saying 1) because they don't really know me 2) they are just making a glib comment in blogland or 3) they are making a sort of inside joke knowing how much I hate it and trying to get me to laugh. See, I'd just be confused. It's just better if that person doesn't read my blog at all, and therefore I'll just stay lurking in anonymity.