Commenting Comments

Dear You, 

Comments are bit like letters, and I've chosen "Dear You" with the hope to get 'letters' back. 

Often we talk more freely about ourselves in a blog than in real life (I sometimes forget completely that "all the world" might read it - though luckily the world has other things to care about).  I even start to worry, if a blogger who normally comments eagerly, remains silent - have I said something stupid? or is he ill? 

Till now I was lucky not to have a troll, an evil commenter on my blog, as Rachel has. 

A rough classification of commenters is:  

- bloggers who don't allow comments. 

- bloggers who promise to answer all comments - and then don't. In that case I wait for a while - (e.g. John, whose blog I really like - and then I withdraw. Not sulkingly, but with time management in mind: I have to invest so much time to a comment - not only because I write in a foreign language, but also because I look up ideas, quotes etc. and reread and polish - so often a tiny weeny comment takes me a quarter of an hour. Or more). And there are so many blogs I want to comment on! 

- bloggers who allow comments, but don't answer. That is utterly understandable as in Pondside's case (she often gets more than 60 comments on one post - that would be a fulltime job to answer them all). Maybe the famous Hattats gave up their blog because the wonderful way they answered each of their zillions of commenters profoundly was too strenuous - I suspect that even they have only 24 hours a day? Often bloggers with many comments don't answer, but comment on my blog - a very fair exchange. 

Some bloggers give short comments, other long ones. 

I'm often a bit wordy. And Tom was right, when I complained in a comment - in a general way - that some posts are just too long (because one wants to read so many) to answer: Yours are often not short either. So true! (Look at this one!) 

Some bloggers blog every day. That is exciting - but often I cannot comment every day, though I read them - which makes me feel that I might appear as a bit fickle, though I am not. 

On Facebook I have the strange phenomenon that a bright young author whom I know in person complains that one often does not comment on his posts - but he never comments himself on anything we write, even to click "Like" seems to be too much. Well - I might think: He just doesn't like it! - but no: recently he told me that he reads every bit and everything I post. Strange. Worse: if a person answers on a comment in the printed version "above your comment", and on the one "under your comment" - but not on your own comment - that I take personal :-) 

I too love to write each day. 

Thus I invented a new blog - "Rise and Shine!" (a quote from "Vera", when she enters police headquarters in Newcastle). If you go to that blog you do it at your own risk - I warned you! no photos, just morsels from everyday life, mine of course :-) . You find that blog on my blogroll at the right - or under the blog-address http://mandelrosen.blogspot.de/ . Of course comments are very welcome - but I don't expect any. 

Ah - and to humour. I love the English authors for their wit and irony. And when I use some (irony), I often put one of these daft emoticons behind it - otherwise there is a fat chance you might think I meant it the way one could read it also. 

Conclusion: Comments are fantastic. They brighten up our day. 

Or as Eeyore put it: 

“I might have known,” said Eeyore. “After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said ‘Bother!’. The Social Round. Always something going on.” A.A.Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh  

 

:-) , :-) . :-) ! 

Toodle- pip!