This tirade is not in response to anything specific, but merely the general feeling of social anxiety I get whenever the subject of having a blog comes up. The word itself may be partly to blame - a slightly different turn of history could have had the word "blog" already in use as the widely accepted onomatopoeia for vomit, and then the original blogger would have had to come up with a more acceptable word, and the bloggers would rejoice.
A rare and wonderful event comes around from time to time when someone, in some sort of social situation, tells me that they read my blog and liked it. The specter of social acceptance, like cheesecake, is one of those biochemical buttons that, in me, causes instant dopamine release. But the euphoria is inevitably short-lived as I'm immediately regarded with suspicion by the third party, who had until that moment been thinking that they might actually like me. "You have a blog?" they inevitably ask, in a way that suggests its not actually a question.
"Um, yeah" I start. How do I defend myself? Its mostly writing and photography - great, now I'm not just a douchebag, I'm a self-absorbed douchebag. Its mainly about skiing and climbing - "Oh, you blog about your adventures, do you?" somehow the word "adventure" suddenly has a biting irony all by itself. "I suppose there must be lots of self-portraits of yourself flexing? Don't need a pond now that we have digital technology, do we, Narcissus?" No, I don't believe I'll explain that I mostly blog about my adventures. That wouldn't even be true these days, would it?
"Um, yeah. I have a blog. I mostly use it to make myself look like a douchebag, though."
Keep on douching! I think your writing style can make up for lack of sponsored-extreme-elite-athleticism.
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