Who's Following Who?

I hate to admit this, as it feels somewhat vainglorious (because it is), but I always get a little thrill in my stomach when I see that someone has commented on a post.

I am a words-of-affirmation kind of gal.

And often even more exciting than a comment, my heart leaps a little bit when I see that I have a new “follower”. This means that someone thinks enough of my writing to make sure they don’t miss a single post (or if they do, it is by choice and not by virtue of the fact that they simply forgot to check my blog and have forgotten about me and my random writings. Sniff, sniff…)

So imagine my surprise (and delight) when I noticed last week that I have a new follower; this person could have started following me weeks ago. It’s not as though the number changes often so I apologize if you’ve been with me for a while but I didn’t take notice. I try not to be completely wrapped up in that number…because if nothing else, that is really sad. Especially once you see how low the number is.

Mind you, by “follower” I do not mean a new “stalker”. Stalkers are scary, so I’ve been told. I’ve seen the previews for “Single White Female,” and, though this may shock you, I’ve actually seen “Fatal Attraction”…albeit through my fingers at some points; so there’s no need to explain to me what stalking looks like. Spoiler alert: I don’t want Indy to end up in a pot on my stove (although if you haven’t seen “Fatal Attraction” by now, will you ever?).

I have never had the “pleasure” of being stalked. And for those of you who have been stalked, please know that I am not taking such a stressful thing lightly. I’m only making a joke. It’s what I attempt to do. Maybe that’s why I don’t have many followers and it’s exciting when I get a new one…just a theory I’m working on.

For those of you who may have never noticed (or even cared), you can see my followers in my right-hand sidebar. And yes, it is pretty easy to keep up because there are only 13 of them…don’t judge.

I’m certain that I have a vast readership which hasn’t gone through the long and tedious process of becoming “official followers”…

Because I have to commit to memory the list of followers so I know who drops me and I can appropriately stalk them (what? Why would I say such things?...), I clicked on the box to show who it was.

Ok, in all honesty, I know some of my followers and I don’t know others…I am sometimes still a little creeped out when names come up in that list for blogs I have never heard of. No offense to any of you, and I know that I have creeper-stalked other bloggers unintentionally (if any of you are out there: sorry about that!), and I know that it’s not a big deal at all; it’s just a way to show that they actually enjoy my writing and want to be fairly-consistent in seeing it come through their blog feed.

Mostly it’s that I wonder how they ended up finding me.

And I wonder if they are real. I don’t know why a non-real person would want to follow my blog, but then again it takes all kinds…

Either way, I am always thrilled to have a new follower join the throngs (yes, “throngs” are now numbers in the teens or higher, lest you be unaware; it’s a new government standard, just released this year.). Anyway, the name of this particular follower didn’t appear when I hovered my cursor over the top.

So, of course, I clicked on it to see if I could get the name to pop up; I’m tenacious if nothing else. When I clicked it, this name appeared at the top of the box: “Mrs. Always Random and Usually Shallow”.

I’m sorry…what?

“Mrs. Always Random and Usually Shallow”

I tried it again…same result.

Yes, my own name.

Am I following myself? I don’t remember doing that…I mean, I am all about having as many followers as I can but even I wouldn’t stoop so low as to follow myself.

At least not intentionally.

I checked the list of blogs and it gives me a long list of “sites I’ve joined”…it includes some of the blogs I follow, and a whole bunch of others which I don’tand frankly, have never heard of.

Confused? Yes, me too.

So…after a series of clicking (if nothing else, the number of page views I’ve got is probably overly-inflated) I figured out my problem…someone is following me incognito.

Oh, that makes more sense…seems I’m not the only one with creeper tendencies…so whoever you are, thanks for following me. I think.

I won’t divulge HOW I figured out why I was confused…I’ll let you try to figure it out for yourself, if you are so inclined. And before you judge that it took me a couple days minutes to figure this out, please recall: I said I was tenacious…not a quick study.

Have a fabulous day!

Follow me on Facebook! (or on Blogger or some other format too…because apparently I am really starved for affirmation…)