Guys and Blogs
From my experience and (limited) research, it seems guys don’t really read blogs. So I don’t really think anyone will read this. 🙂
It seems guys are not to relationship-based… shock! Women read blogs BY people and ABOUT people. They’ll read a given person’s blog b/c of the person and not the topic. Guys visit topical sites (whether they’re blogs or not).
Engadget, macrumors, espn, etc. – whether or not they’re “blogs”, they’re topical and, at least for my case, they don’t know or care who writes a given post. There are exceptions, of course.
There are plenty of topical women-focused sites/blogs also, but fewer men-focused blogs. And even if they are by men and are blogs, they’re still topical and/or concept-centric (e.g., Seth Godin).
Why is this the case? I think we can generally agree that men aren’t as much in touch w/their feelings, fear revealing themselves, don’t know how to listen (w/o correcting or advising) and generally are self absorbed.
I’m not slamming men. I like men. Honestly, I’m one myself. And I’m all those things.
However, as we all know, when we’re lying on our death bed, the thing we’d trade every dollar we ever made, every hobby we ever mastered, every car we ever bought for is one more minute with the people we love.
I’m often torn btwn doing something and spending time w/ my family. I’m a prisoner of my own mind and it’s a rotten jail. I want to learn something (e.g., guitar), but that takes time – time I cd be spending w/ someone. So do I never learn anything. Sd I stop typing right now and tackle someone to spend time with?
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. But it’s not the only thing. And I’d argue that spending time alone or with a hobby is good and certainly in many cases can be time w/ God.
Am I getting off track? Guys and blogs. Right.
I know there are guys that read blogs. I know there are personal guy blogs. But I’d say women generally read more personal stuff and guys more topical stuff like fitness blogs.
And I’d say that’s b/c guys are missing the point in many senses. It’s about happy hours and watching football together and hunting, camping, bowling, etc. – doing things w/ people you love. Knowing and being known. It can be scary and intimidating, but more often than not when I reveal something about myself, it’s met with a “me too.”
Reality does get in the way. If you get up at 7 to be at work at 8:30 to leave at 5:30 and home by 6 or so. You’ve got time for dinner, some time w/ family, maybe relax a bit and then bed. Where’s your hobby time? Working out? Football practice?
The weekend is just as packed if not more so. Sure, it’s all “good” things – I don’t mean to say it’s not. But people say everyone is so busy “these days.” A lot of that is striving for the things of this world, keeping up w/ the Joneses, greed, finding value in the wrong places, etc. But a lot of it is just reality. Each generation probably says the same thing about the next – they’re so busy running around. They were too probably, but they don’t remember it that way.
Wow, WAY off track again. Rambling!
So should guys read more personal blogs? I dunno. But they probably should be more relational. They figure it out later and that’s when they become old-timers having their “coffee clubs” at the diner and such.
If you’re a guy, can you think of a person you wish wrote an online journal that you could read regularly and get to know them more? There’s not many public figures I’d be interested in that way. However, I wd love it if some of my friends did it and I cd read it.
I did used to keep up w/ Phil Vischer’s blog.
That, again, is a guy down-fall. I’d probably more likely to read a friend’s blog than to call him up and chat for the same amount of time. Ug, conviction. Guilty.
So what’s the take-away? What’s the bottom line? I don’t know. The End.
Well, maybe… guys: be more relational. And be sure to spend your time doing the things (with people) that you’ll wish you had when you’re older. Do the things you wish your dad had done. Boom!