The Manatee Speaks from the Bottom

Posted on November 6, 2002 in Blogging

Thymewise asked:

Am I required to link to everyone who links to me? Okay, I know I’m not required, but should I? Is it rude not to? Should I have a separate page with links to the people who don’t make my main page?

I’ve been struggling with the question of links ever since I started writing web sites. For this web log, I ultimately resorted to a two page method where I put blogs which I feel to be especially notable on the first page and others (including most of my reciprocations) on the second.

The first page is for people whose work has struck me as particularly dedicated and truthful. The second is for those who just blog to blog. I go an extra length for fine blogs and write a positive review as I did for Thymewise and her husband Scott last week.

Now that Thyme has relegated me to her page two, I would do so again.

If you study the list of “first page” blogs, you will find that there are many people on these lists who do not reciprocate to me or put me on their first page.

Reciprocity? I’ve seen people get “link me happy” and think this is the only thing that matters. One person turned me off not too long ago because she was bragging how she was nearing the 100 links mark. She just saw the rest of us as objects. I cut her completely off my lists not because she had not reciprocated, but because it was clear that all she cared about was her personal fame.

Long ago I learned something: that a lot of people in whom I find merit who want to have nothing to do with me. They’re not evil. I can’t say I really understand why people choose to absolutely love some blogs that read like badly printed cereal boxes and ignore mine. I’ve been told by close friends that it’s because most people don’t like confrontation, because they feel threatened by my intelligence, because I write too thoughtfully and at length. Keep in mind that they are friends who know my fragile ego: I may well be none of these things and I often don’t believe them.

The world confuses the hell out of me. It’s a funny thing, but I’ve noticed that people will love you if you call them “asshole” flat out, but hate you if you weigh the import of their words and offer thoughtful criticism. Many more will expect you to apologize as if you had taken a knife to their very being by saying “this is how I feel about the subject”. And they will call you “humor-impaired” if a cutting remark that they point at you hurts you badly. They want your apologies but never give their’s. I keep apologizing anyways when I lose it.

I tend to think of myself as unlikeable. So when someone doesn’t reciprocate, I usually shrug my shoulders. It’s just the same old story. About half the people who I chose for my first page don’t link back for me. I just remember that I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for the faithful readers that I have.

I’ve helped others plenty of times with recommendations only to see them turn their back on me, sometimes because I let in a bit of criticism, sometimes because I was not a perfect fit, sometimes because for all that I saw that I honestly liked in them, they didn’t like what they saw in me. I get it from all angles: people who don’t trust me because I am not a “vote for only Democrats” guy or because I do vote for the Democrats; because I distrust empty gestures like demonstrations where people bare their bums for the cameras and I distrust the emptiness of the conservative-dominated mass media; because we have some slight religious differences; because I am fascinated by things like the Mexican Day of the Dead (the silence this week has been resounding); because sometimes I criticize people on my side instead of reserving my rebuffs just for the other side; because I am not gay or because I don’t mind the company of gays; because I am not “committed enough”; because my writing is, in their eyes, boring; because they think I am arrogant; etc. In other words, it feels like that no matter what I do, I am going to cause people to dislike me. Perhaps they feel as one person said in the comments here a few weeks ago, that I should just go away.

Well, I do that. My model for conflict is the manatee. When someone thoughtlessly slices me with their passing outboard motor, I generally sink to the bottom of my lake. I go away.

But for those who have found me, who still despite my flaws and oversensitivities like me: thank you. Thank you for your comments: they cheer me. Thank you for your links whether you put them on the first page or on the last: they help me find a few more people like you. Thanks to those who come without waiting for me to say nice things about them. You folks are really something. And thanks to people with whom I have had disagreements like chari and Karen who still keep coming here, who still appear to like me for what I am. Thanks to rainbow and Teresa. Thanks to Thymewise who still shows up occasionally, even without prompting from me. Thanks to the people who am I forgetting. You keep me from swimming out to sea and never appearing in the mind of humankind again.

And now I wait: I fully expect people to get pissed off at this post, but this is how it is.

To those who might complain that this is a scream, I have this to say: you here in my lake. You’re the one who came swimming to the bottom looking for me.