This is MetroDad here filling in on a Friday for your regular host Jason. I'm not sure where Jason is right now but I'm guessing it's got something to do with surfboards or beer.
Anyway...Jason only asked me last night to cover for him so I'm throwing up a quick post here as a favor to him. And believe me, I'm more than happy to do it for him. Because, for me, one of the coolest aspects about the whole blogging community is the fact that you really can become friends with people simply by reading each other's blogs.
When I was a younger lad, I used to divide the whole of humanty into two distinct groups: people that I'd like to sit and have a beer with and people I wouldn't. I've matured since then and have found that those criteria were fairly useless but Jason is definitely a guy whom I would enjoy kicking back with and sharing a few beers. Not only do we share a similar sense of humor (twisted) but also the man was on Jeopardy, people! And aside from the fact that we were both Poli Sci majors specializing in International Relations, we also both have the same shoe size. Jeez...how much more could we have in common? Between beers, the two of us could draft a constitution for Iraq and swap sneakers!
But in all seriousness, I really do find the emergence of blogging to be a very cool and fascinating development in the way that humans interact with one another. Blogging allows us to find people who share our same philosophies, perspectives, life experiences or sense of humor. Personally, I write a "daddy blog" so I spend my time reading a lot of blogs authored by other parents. And originally, the subject of parenting was the main impetus for my reading other blogs. But then, before I really even knew it, I found myself invested in other people's lives. I learned more about them. I found more shared experiences or commonalities that extended beyond parenting.
With Jason, it was definitely a shared sense of humor. But I found some interesting connections with other parents also. Some shared my passion for reading. Some shared my love for baseball. Others shared my desires to raise a 3rd generation Korean-American child in a way that honors his/her heritage. But for the most part, a lot of it came back to the fact that many of the blogs I read are written by people who share a true love of parenting. They aren't just going through the motions but they don't take themselves too seriously. My kind of people, yo!
I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking it all. Maybe we're all just a bunch of voyeuristic turds who are fascinated by the daily transactions of other people's lives. But I feel like it's more than that. And though I can't quite put my finger on it, I'm sure someone much smarter than me will be able to. Because I think the friendships forged over the blogosphere are real. I'm pretty sure if I met Jason in real life, we'd have a good time hanging out. In fact, I'm pretty sure if I met most of the people who read my blog, I'm sure we'd get along. Unless, of course, they turn out to be rude, bigoted or obnoxious egomaniacs.
OK, I'm rambling. Let's turn the mic over to you. What do you think about forged friendships via blogging? How do you think blogging has changed the way we interact with one another? How do you feel about blogging in general? How do you feel about the people whose blogs you read? Throw anything out there. Let's see if we can figure this shit out.
