Anatomy of a lurker

It's National De-lurking Week. Or so I've discovered from reading entries at several of my regular haunts (and I know I'm missing a couple). The entries have amused me, especially the questions that have been posed to draw readers out.

But guess what? I haven't answered any of them.

Now I'm not a lurker, per se. I do comment occasionally on every blog I read.* But I will admit that I don't comment as often as I think I should.

So here's a list of the excuses I give for not commenting regularly:

1. Technical reasons.

I have noticed that I have commented less since the new Blogger was rolled out. The problem, in a (less technical, somewhat brief) nutshell: I have two profiles on my Firefox. Basically one is tied to my real world Google account and one to my blogworld Google account. I used to do all of my blogreading and commenting via the second profile, but got lazy when I set up Bloglines on the other profile. Now, however, whenever I want to comment, Blogger pulls in my Google information from my real world account; this is problematic both because I have to switch my account to comment (and it loses any comment I've started in the switch) and because I then get bounced out of my Gmail account (which I usually keep open). So technical/lazy--your call.

2. Shyness.

I find that I am less likely to comment when a post has either zero or many, many comments. In the first case, it's because I don't want to stand out, right there at the front. With the latter, I feel overwhelmed by the many voices already out there and figure mine doesn't need to be heard. Which is related to...

3. A lack of anything important to say.

I have a hard time saying something simple like, "Good post." Which is ridiculous, because I sure appreciate it when people leave me a short message like that. Often I'll start to write something and end up deleting the whole thing.

4. A lack of timeliness.

I like to let things marinate. As a result, I often think of something to say about a post days later, but by then it feels like it's too late.

5. A lack of time.

I don't read that many blogs (especially compared to the numbers I've seen cited by other people), but even that number can stretch my time when I'm in the middle of a semester.

Now to turn this around.

I try not to focus on my StatCounter numbers. And I truly am pleased to have the core of readers that I do, as well as a smaller core within that group who regularly comment. But I am curious about those visitors who show up but, as far as I know, have never commented. Obviously I'm saying something that keeps you coming back (and that alone makes me ecstatic), so thank you just for reading.

There's one sub-group of my readers I want to mention specifically--those of you who got here via LesbianFamily.org and Mombian.com. I've been lucky to make friends with a good number of Canadian moms through my blog already, but would really love to hear from some of the lesbian moms out there too.

Just a gentle nudge.

*I think, though it's possible I've missed someone.