Peer Pressure - A Victim's Perspective

Okay. I did it. I caved in to the pressure like a bad souffle, and I am not above blaming it on my friends.

I've started a blog.

And here's where my voice starts to take on a highly annoying, whiny tone... everyone else had one and I was starting to feel left out.

As soon as I typed that previous sentence I heard my mother's voice in my head pose the familiar, age-old question, "If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?" The answer to that is obviously, "Yes. Yes, I would. I would cast my self willingly into the void like the lemming that I obviously am."

At the last BookBabes gathering I was the only one who didn't have some sort of bloggery presence online. One individual, who shall remain nameless, had her beautifully customized blog for over a year and had yet to write a single post. But at least she had one. As everyone was exchanging URLs, I felt distinctly left out of the inner blogging circle.

"I have 51 followers now, all of whom think I am brilliant and witty," said one of the Babes, as she knocked back a stiff belt of wine. "They leave me comments and wonderful words of praise."

Well, damn. I had to have some of that. It sounded about as close to having minions/ worshippers as I'm liable to get.

There is a certain amount of pressure to perform, however, that comes with establishing a blog. There is an expectation that I must do something worthy of writing about in order to justify my narcissistic activity. I feel like I need to lead a much more interesting life in order to keep the followers coming to place their lavish gifts at the foot(er) of my blog/altar. I want to be one of those benevolent bloggers who showers their followers with hilarity and wisdom. Given the kind of life I lead though, unintentional hilarity is likely to ensue, but I can't promise anything that even vaguely resembles wisdom, unless it's the please-learn-from-the-following-painful-mistakes-I-have-made variety.

Having been on the follower/friend end of the issue, I also am fully aware of what it is like to receive too much information. I love some of these same people to the point of distraction, but, seriously, I DO NOT NEED TO KNOWexactly when, where, how, why and what bodily functions are performed every time they go to the loo. Shit happens. I get it. I love you, but it's fine if I don't know certain things. We're still friends, I promise.

To spare my followers (the number I expect to reach triple digits aaaany second now) a torturous litany of stream of consciousness blather and loo status reports broadcast like it's important news from the front, I swear, if it comes to that, I will willingly cast my blog into the void.