“No, ‘hate’ is not too strong,” he said, raising his voice.  “I think it is perfectly descriptive.  I.  Hate.  Blogging.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause it gives me hope,” he lamented.  “I hate that I sit there, typing away on those loud keys, pouring out myself in words, and afterward I discover a few other humans ‘like’ or ‘follow’ the blog.”

“Not makin’ sense friend.”

“Okay, let me put it this way,” he continued laboriously.  “I feel alone in the world sometimes.  You know, the whole ‘misunderstood’ crap people talk about?  Yeah, that’s how I feel sometimes-”

“We all do, dude.”

“-Right.  But there is a difference.  I can write.  I can communicate myself to others.  I can waive a flag letting people know ‘I’m alive.  If you are, too, let me know.’  Not everyone can do that.  So I started writing.  I started putting myself out there–no holding back.  I even wrote a post which taught some of my senior-citizen followers a new curse-word, which I have since made private because it was so shameful.”

“The ol’ ‘fucktard’.  I remember that one.”

“Yeah.  Anyhow, every once in a while people respond favorably.  I was shocked that people responded at all.  So, you can imagine how it feels when people respond favorably.  More than favorably, sometimes people will comment in a way that shows they got it.  And in getting it they get me.”

“I see, Pete.  I see.  You hate blogging because it gives evidence that there are people out there who get you.  But, you think this doesn’t really count, because you only know this via the computer.  And this digital evidence, as it were, downgrades it to little more than hope.”

“Exactly.  See, that’s why I’m telling you this.  You get me.  I get you.  But I don’t feel like there’s many others out there.  And so this blog, then, is little more than the force that propels the emotional pendulum which swings from ‘Hey, life’s great.  It’s filled with people who live on this planet’ to ‘how is this world even self-sustaining?'”

“Well, as you know, I don’t know what to tell you.  Cheer up.  I like reading your stuff.  It makes me laugh.”

“Yeah, yeah.  I know.  Thanks.”