Who Reads Me?

I'm pretty sure I read (but of course can't find it now) on Jack's blog that an informal survey of posts revealed that the posts that get the most comments are those written about blogging. My last post about blogging got quite a few, so here's another.

One of the things I said in my post was that one of the reasons I sometimes feel weird about blogging is because I both know and don't know who reads.

I will admit that one of my guilty pleasures is checking my stat counter. Not necessarily to see how many hits I have (and I honestly can't tell you how many I average per day, like some bloggers can), but to see who is reading. For those who have e-mailed me or who comment regularly, I can look at their hits and know who they are.

But there are also numerous hits from those who I have NO idea who they are. Some of these are from random Internet searches that lead people to my blog. Mainly searches for Jewish terms, but also some for the song lyrics I post or the books that I write about. Those I don't wonder about so much, because they are mostly one-time visitors that go back to Google.

But I get other anonymous hits as well, some on a very regular basis. Some from NY, some from Baltimore, some from New Jersey. For these, I often wonder whether I know the people in "real life" and if that's why they read (and wonder why they don't comment and share their input). Others come from all over the world - Chile, Africa, the Netherlands, Japan, Norway. I wonder about these folks who are out there reading my blog from other parts of the world, but never speaking up to share their input on my posts, why they come, if they can relate to what I'm saying.

And I wonder about all these anonymous readers who never comment, never e-mail - why? Why do they keep coming back if they don't have anything to say? Are they shy? Do they just like reading? Do they have blogs of their own? Do they completely disagree with every word I write, but are just too polite to say so?

Anyway, this is my call out to those readers who don't comment or e-mail - I'd love to hear from you. Just a quick hello. If you don't want to comment publicly, send me an e-mail. You can find it on my sidebar under "Links" or in my profile.