Via Annika, here's one theory about why we all blog and read blogs:
According to Simon Dumenco, a prominent U.S. media analyst, people read blogs at least in part because they "want to get laid."
Blog culture just sort of accelerates and intensifies what's always been the case: Consuming certain sorts of media, certain cultural products, can give you talking points that make you more interesting to other like-minded people who are members of various social interest groups.''
Dumenco doesn't identify a direct cause-effect relationship between reading a blog and landing a lover. But he does suggest an intrinsic link between people's yearning to be part of a collective and the prospects of a sexual encounter within that collective.
Gosh, I've got the wrong kind of blog.
it's not the wrong kind of blog. any non-mra male who reads this blog regularly is cool in my book.
Posted by: anonymous | March 14, 2006 at 12:16 PM
You know, ever since I hired Linda to be the Office Manager/Accountant; I spend more time assigning tasks, signing things as the Big Kahuna, reviewing bueiness plans, reviewing reports and work orders, and wiaiting for problems to occur so I can stomp them out. Engagement in something besides mechanical thought keeps me from going barking mad. One of these days, I need to sell this business and write, but if I do, I am afraid I will become all but a complete hermit, and eventually be weird old grandpa.
Posted by: The Gonzman | March 14, 2006 at 12:17 PM
My husband found me online and "got interested" because of my site. (This was in mid-2000, though, so there was a much, much smaller pool of bloggers.)
Posted by: aldahlia | March 14, 2006 at 12:23 PM
My doctor was wondering how I was doing so well. I'm doing better than him, and I'm almost twice his age and a diabetic.
Now I can explain to him it's because I am a blogger. It's got to be cheaper than those well-advertised medications.
Posted by: Rob | March 14, 2006 at 12:25 PM
Well, now that I think about it, one reason that I mention my wife so often on this blog is that I want it to be abundantly clear that nothing I am doing in this public world is part of a strategy to meet women.
I also just like saying "my wife", because it makes me happy to see it written out.
But if my readers decide to start e-mailing each other and meeting (like Aldahlia's husband), I hope they write and tell me about it.
Posted by: Hugo | March 14, 2006 at 12:32 PM
"...Simon Dumenco, a prominent U.S. media analyst...."
Wow, really, I've never heard of Simon Dumenco, ever!
Posted by: CaptDMO | March 14, 2006 at 02:59 PM
So when you meet more people who are like you, you're more likely to find people you're compatible with, and maybe even date or sleep with them? No way.
Posted by: Sara | March 14, 2006 at 03:12 PM
I'm not entirely sold on this theory. Next time a I meet a woman at a party I'll start talking about the latest round of debates on framing health care policy at TPM and see how that works for me...
Posted by: djw | March 14, 2006 at 04:44 PM
According to Simon Dumenco, a prominent U.S. media analyst, people read blogs at least in part because they "want to get laid."
They may want to "get laid" but I don't think it's gonna happen by blogging!
Posted by: alexander | March 14, 2006 at 08:02 PM
So when you meet more people who are like you, you're more likely to find people you're compatible with, and maybe even date or sleep with them? No way.
Heh. Yeah, call it poetic justice if you want, but me and a certain local feminist avoid the hell out of each other because somehow we always wind up in the sack together, no matter how bitter a screaming match we have. It's a real Mary Matalan/James Carville thing, except that - well - we really don't even like each other.
Thing is, I can hear God laugh at the both of us.
Sexual chemistry - no, I don't even pretend to have the faintest understanding of it.
Posted by: The Gonzman | March 15, 2006 at 06:50 AM
I guess those of us who started reading blogs since getting married are wasting our time. :)
Posted by: carlaviii | March 15, 2006 at 10:47 AM
Yeah, you missed the boat. The blogosphere is a regular swinger's club. Whoopie.
Posted by: The Gonzman | March 15, 2006 at 11:14 AM
Clearly I'm the one with the wrong kind of blog....
Posted by: Anne Zook | March 15, 2006 at 09:27 PM