Last Thursday evening, I went to happy hour with some people from work. It was odd to see each co-worker's persona shift from pastel button-up to backwards baseball cap. Two iced teas into the night, my caffeine buzz led me into the taboo trifecta of the conversational world: politics, religion, and economics {oh, my?} Luckily, my chatting partner was not put off by my gusto. Soon, though, I was in a totally different kind of awkward conversation.
A co-worker's kind attempt to deliver conversational fodder ended in total backfire. When the man seated beside me asks me to supply some details about my life, the woman next to him brings up this very blog. This information is met with an "I probably shouldn't say this" from the new buddy to my left. The blog tattler eggs him on, "Say it! Say it!" Some stories he shared with me earlier rattle around in my brain and whisper that it might be best if he refrain from saying that which he probably shouldn't say.
"Blogging is narcissistic."
"..."
Okay.
I see where he's coming from, I do. Do I think that I am so interesting that I deserve a permanent space on the World Wide Web for all of my "fans" to read my every succulent thought? Well, no, I don't. So why blog?
Well, I think that blogging is a legitimate practice. Cooking blogs, political blogs, family blogs all have very real and practical purposes. But...is Audrey Onassis legitimate?
Probably not. My favorite reason to give for blogging is that it serves as a kind of scrapbook. I can catalog my life for future reference, something I've been doing since 2003. But, I don't really need a public domain for that. According to Mr. Narcissistic, I would be better served keeping my "diary" private.
However, past experience has shown me that, if I set out to write something "for my eyes only", it never materializes. This blog keeps me accountable to my recounting.
Is that reason enough? Well, it is sort of flimsy. How about the "blogging community"? That one gets thrown around a lot, I think. I have made friends through blogging. I care about Pink Lou Lou and Erin and Katie in a very real way. If I didn't write here, then our "friendships" would be very one-sided. I would read their words and "know" them, but they wouldn't "know" me but for my comments. This, too, is probably flimsy, but what's a girl to do?
I don't know. It seems like a lot of rationalization with little product. Some bloggers' purposes, though, are clear with each typed word. Some are writers; it's what they do and their blogs are where they do it. Some are mothers; their followers are grandmothers and aunties and old friends from college. But what about the rest of us?
Maggie Mason wrote a book about blogging called
No One Cares What You Had For Lunch. Now, I know for a fact that at least two people care what I had for lunch {yes, one of them is, in fact, my mother}, but I also know that this blog is not the place to inform them. But is it equally true that no one cares what I would like to buy from Anthropologie? Or no one cares that I made my brother eat burnt garlic bread?
I fear that I've veered into a dangerously pitiful territory here. To be clear, I am not asking if you, dear reader, care about my content. What I am asking, however, is this:
do you think blogging is narcissistic?
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