Sink or Swim?

Now, as a new blogger, something I find I’m enjoying greatly, it has me wondering though, if it’s just me; am I really that crap at interacting, even online, with people?  Do they just not like me?

I’m not great at ingratiating myself into certain situations even with the relative anonymity of the Internet, and so it’s definitely a push for me to initiate any kind of relationship with strangers, always kinda on the outside looking in.  But I’m trying.

I see that most bloggers here have hundreds of followers, or a great deal at least, and I know I have to put myself out there to be like them, establish myself within groups, strike up a rapport, contribute, take myself out of my comfort zone, conform even.  And having been a member of a writing site for the last three years or so, I thought I’d learned a great deal about exercising my digital voice; contributing to online forums where body language can’t have a say, online communication very different from the intimacy of that face to face, conversing without the kind of animation I’m so good at that I could actually be Italian.  I thought I’d learned, at the very least, how to be subtle though; my straightforward, but nonetheless intended to be helpful comments often misinterpreted in the past; viewed as controversial even, because they hadn’t followed suit of the ego stroking niceties that were very often unmerited and in place of offering some helpful advice that might actually help a new writer grow.

Perhaps I take things too personally, but that’s who I am, I analyse everything, feel deeply, and so I can’t help but wonder why a complimentary comment I left on someone’s competition entry here should have been deleted.  It was a nice enough piece, sure, but I could have pointed out a passive voice, a lack of exposition and some other nitpicky stuff, but I didn’t; this isn’t my writing site after all, and I don’t know yet that this kind of advice is wanted, or even appropriate here even among writers – the standard of which I find pleasantly high so far - but mainly because I’ve learned that an honest to goodness kind of critique isn’t always received well, so I've learned to hold back.  Since leaving mine, five other comments such as ‘love it, go vote for me’, have been posted on that blog, I know, because I subscribed to the follow up emails, yet mine is soaring through cyberspace with no place to go.  So yes, it leaves me thinking that I can’t do right for doing wrong.

It bothers me, perhaps irrationally, but as I said, I imagine all sorts of reasons as to why this might have been.  It could be innocent enough or it could be that my British way of saying things meant that my comment was viewed differently from an American perspective, as can happen, although I can’t really see why in this case it would’ve; friendly as my message was. But the one thing we did on my writing site was to reciprocate; I wonder if the same unspoken rule applies here? 


On the other hand, there are those who have come to my entry by their own volition, and that is always a pleasure. Indeed I've 'met' some really nice people here, which is what I'll concentrate on instead of dwelling on the feeling of rejection that this one incident wants to instil within me - even though I know it could simply be down to a malfunction somewhere - perhaps residue from years of over-reaction from those on my writing site.

No, I won’t allow this deleted (misplaced?) comment to put me off my ‘up until that point, enthusiasm' for trying to join in, but nonetheless, perhaps now I know why I have only read nice reviews on blogs here as opposed to the mixed bag you get on writing sites; it’s easy to delete those that you don’t want - that can be a good thing though and I often wished for that function on the writing site. 

So, just so you know I welcome hearing from complete and utter strangers as surely a blog site is intended to accommodate, and hopefully this is just a one off innocent situation, no more needless obsessing. I look forward to those who want to interact with an otherwise lone wolf like me... talking of which, here's a little ditty I wrote (although I don't profess to like... wax all poetical or owt.)


Lone Wolf

What fate it is to succumb to a life alone in all things

Not sharing beauty of mind, your perception of the world
To suffer on the outside, the sense of not being welcome in

Click image to read samples of humorous poetry by S P Mount

To deny another of yourself in body and brain and all

A choice, no doubt, but from where is it made, and why
When the rest of the world is content to be in somebody's company
Is this designed to punish, or is it a form of enlightenment, are you being mocked
For not tagging along a trodden path of what is considered normalcy

How can humankind be so unique and individual yet so very different with distinctive fingerprints when given the droves in which it exists
Why does it punish goodwill, castigate learned people for what they know
For a gift of awareness so independently beautiful should be chastised, is a sin

Ignorance ostracises most things unfamiliar and not recognised, as intimidation
No welcome mat for inexplicable threats for fear of inferiority complexes stepping in
No salutation for a lone wolf… or is the welcome staved away with bared teeth
Is it better to be one, or alone in a pack, or both, what fate, strange one, is your doom