On Blogging

He Loves Me Not is turning eight this month. Eight years.

I hope I've grown in those eight years. I mean, I know I have. The first page of my blog reads of a scared 24-year-old girl, not of an engaged 32-year-old. But steps I've taken were so small that they didn't feel like leaps and bounds. It's only with time you can turn around and realize you are nowhere close to where you started.

So I guess I'm supposed to inject some wisdom of what I learned from writing a dating blog for eight years.

Be real. The reason I started this blog is because I was desperately lonely and I wanted someone to know how I was feeling, all of the ugly thoughts and emotions. I didn't feel comfortable attaching that to my real name, probably because at the time I was being harassed on a different blog with my real name on it and I couldn't take any more shame or rejection. But I think as humans we seek connections with one another, and this is formed not by being polite and proper, but by being real and honest.

Find your style. This is not my first blog. This is actually my third. One's been outright deleted and one's been taking up space on the ol' Blogger server. Despite being penned by the same author, they did poorly, receiving an average of 60 visits a day. This one, back when I was posting three times a week, received about 1,000. The difference, I believe, was that this blog had a clear, defined style while the others were hodgepodges of links and quips of funny conversations and day-to-day life. The posts on this blog read like chapters in an ongoing story. I used lots of dialog originally because I didn't trust my interpretation of conversations. I wanted to present impartial dialog so someone could tell me what the hell was going on. Eventually I found my style and ran with it. I didn't need pictures because my words painted my pictures. I preferred simple web design so as to not distract from the writing.

Love and hate your commenters. This is probably my biggest struggle. People! They love to help! Bless their hearts. But also the Internet is a trove for the worst people on the planet. Be prepared for lots of unsolicited advice. Also be prepared to read in detail what a terrible human being you are. It's your blog, so it's your rules. My rule was to weed out trolls by not allowing anonymous commenting. You are within your rights to delete nasty, rude comments.

I think the best comments were ones that created discussion or shared feeling. There are people that root for you and pray for you, and they are just the best. There are people that make you cross cities and states and sometimes countries to meet. I have my Canadian wishlist and my United Kingdom wishlist. As a whole, my life has been more fulfilled by the relationships I established with the commenting community.

To thine own self be true. Sometimes commenters can be right. Sometimes they can read the dialog and put together perspective that you are too close to see. And sometimes they can be grossly wrong. Sometimes they will tell you to not take a chance on a Jewish man because you are different religions. Listen to your gut and trust it.