I'm Still Trying to Figure This Shit Out

If you're reading this, it's probably because you enjoy my blog.

Some of you probably don't even know much about the social media side of all this. I don't talk about it much over here.

But some strange shit has been happening lately, so I figured I'd tell you about it.

I started posting on Facebook not all that long ago.

There wasn't a plan. I wasn't trying to build an audience. I wasn't trying to become anybody.

I'm a contractor. I'm a dad. I'm a pretty simple guy.

I was bullshitting on the internet.

That's really about it.

I'd have a thought and post it. Take a picture and post that. Say something stupid that made me laugh.

Then people started following me.

And then more people started following me.

I'm over 4,000 now.

I know that ain't shit on the internet. I'm small potatoes. There are people with hundreds of thousands of followers. Millions.

Good for them.

I ain't trying to become an influencer.

Hell, I don't even really know what all that means.

I imagine those folks have to put some thought into what they're doing. The picture. The lighting. What they're wearing. What they're gonna say.

Maybe they don't. I don't know.

I know I don't.

I'm not checking my hair and the lighting before I take a picture.

I got a thought, I fucking post it.

Most of the pictures I put up, I'm filthy looking.

That's because I usually am.

I've been working.

I've had people tell me I need to take a bath. Wash my clothes. I've even been called a scrub.

That one pissed me off the first time.

Then I thought about it.

Somebody was scrolling through Facebook, saw a picture of me looking like a scrub, stopped scrolling, looked at it long enough to decide I looked like a scrub, then took the time to tell me.

Well, shit.

Maybe they're into scrubs.

I don't know.

Something made them stop.

That's one of the funny things about all this.

I didn't go looking for these people.

They found me.

Something made them stop scrolling. Something made them click. Then apparently something made them decide they wanted to see more of whatever the hell I was doing.

I'm not trying to win anybody over.

I'm just putting myself out there.

Take me or leave me.

Somehow a whole bunch of people have decided to stick around.

I've also figured out there are basically two kinds of people following me.

There are people who actually seem interested in what I have to say.

Then there are people who just enjoy looking at me.

At least that's what I can figure.

I'm alright with both.

And I ain't gonna sit here and pretend I don't enjoy some of the attention.

I'm a divorced man in my 40s. A few hundred people tell you that you look good, you're gonna notice.

Hell, I'm human.

But the part of all this I've probably enjoyed the most is this blog.

I didn't know I liked writing.

Turns out I do.

Sometimes I sit down knowing exactly what I want to say. Sometimes I don't figure out what the hell I'm trying to say until I'm halfway through writing it.

I like that.

And people started emailing me because of it.

Actual emails.

Somebody will go find my email address and sit down and write me.

Some just check in to see how I'm doing. Some tell me what's going on in their lives. Some tell me about something I wrote.

I've gotten some pretty damn thoughtful ones.

One of my favorite things that's happened through all of this came from one of those emails.

A woman who'd been reading the blog wrote me and said she'd been thinking about starting one herself.

I wrote her back and told her to do it.

Basically told her to quit worrying about whether anybody would read the damn thing. If she had something she wanted to say, sit her ass down and write it.

Wouldn't you know it?

She did.

She emailed me again after she published her first post and sent me the link.

I read it.

Now I follow her blog.

I'm damn proud of her.

Not because I did anything. She did that herself.

I'm just proud she did it.

And I'm humbled that she trusted some contractor she found on the internet enough to tell him about it.

That's the kind of shit I never expected when I started doing this.

But there's another side of it I'm still trying to figure out.

A month or so ago, when I had maybe 1,500 followers, I'd make a post and go back later that day and answer the comments.

Sometimes I'd answer damn near everybody.

I'd start replying and look up two hours later.

But I enjoyed it.

And if I'm telling the truth, I felt like if somebody took the time to leave me a comment, the least I could do was say something back.

So I did.

Maybe I created a problem for myself doing that.

Because I can't do it anymore.

Last night a woman left a comment on Facebook wanting to know why I don't respond to her comments.

She said if I didn't start answering her, she was going to unfollow me.

Well, hell.

That pissed me off.

My first thought was, then unfollow me.

I didn't say it.

But I damn sure thought it.

Later I started thinking about it.

Maybe some of that was my fault.

Maybe she'd been around when I answered everybody. Maybe I'd made people think that's how this worked.

So I went back and looked at the last seven days.

More than 4,300 comments.

Four thousand three hundred.

I did the math.

If I spent three minutes reading and answering every one of them, that's 215 hours.

There's only 168 hours in a week.

Well, shit.

I work full time. I'm a single dad. I've got shit to do. Occasionally I need to sleep.

I can't do it.

That's when I think it finally hit me how much this thing has changed.

When there were a thousand people around, it felt like I was bullshitting with the same group most days.

Now it feels like folks are walking out of the woods.

Most of them are good people.

I want to make that clear because I don't want this to sound like I'm bitching.

I'm not.

Most of this has been fun as hell.

People make me laugh. They're kind to me. They tell me stories. They check in on me.

Hell, people take time out of their day to come over here and read whatever I've got rolling around in my head.

That's pretty damn cool.

But every once in a while somebody walks out of those woods already pissed off.

That's the part I don't understand.

Somebody I've never seen before will show up and tell me what kind of person I am.

Or what I should be doing.

Or what I shouldn't be doing.

Sometimes they'll make some accusation that makes even my mouth drop.

And I find myself thinking, who the hell are you really mad at?

Because it can't possibly be me.

We just met.

Maybe that's just the internet.

I don't know.

Maybe people see enough pictures and read enough shit somebody writes and start feeling like they know them.

Hell, maybe I've done the same thing and never thought about it.

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

I guess I have decided one thing though.

I ain't gonna spend a bunch of time trying to explain myself every time somebody doesn't like something I said or did.

Hell, maybe this is my apology tour.

One stop.

Right here.

I'll probably just save the link.

I'm kidding.

Mostly.

Because I ain't gonna pretend I'm some victim in all this either.

Nobody made me post anything.

I chose to do it.

And I like doing it.

I like making people laugh. I like hearing from people. I like the attention sometimes.

I really fucking like writing this blog.

If all of it disappeared tomorrow, I'd probably miss it.

I'm just trying to figure out what to do with all of it now.

I started out posting whatever shit rolled out of my mouth.

I'm gonna keep doing that.

I'm not gonna start cleaning myself up for pictures because somebody thinks I should.

I'm not gonna figure out which version of me people like best and start pretending to be that guy.

I ain't doing it.

I'm the same guy I was when 200 people were following me.

If this stops at 4,000, fine.

If it ever gets to 100,000, God help us all.

I'll probably still be sitting somewhere in a dirty shirt saying something I probably should've kept to myself.

There's plenty about all this I still need to figure out.

But I know one thing.

I ain't changing.

Take me or leave me.

I'm alright with that.

— Joe