Yesterday, I was taking yet another survey and for a couple of the questions, I had to really analyze my blogroll. A curious pattern emerged: I had linked to more men then women. But when it came to linking back to me, more women did than men. The ratios, were in fact, reversed. In my blogroll men to women were 3:2. When linking to me, the men to women ratio was 2:3. I wonder if this is happening to anyone else or if maybe this is just this blog's particular weird quirk.
I have also noticed that everyone on my blogroll (with the exception of two people) is older than me. From casual observation, people tend to link to their peers. This happens more often with younger people, possibly because there are, in general, more younger people online. Am I somehow deviant in this respect, or is it more related to disliking reading about the social lives and mundane schoolwork of teenagers and wanna-be teenagers?
So who do I link to? Oh, all sorts of people. Scientists, students, feminists, musicians--people who are in many respects similar to me. There are also people who on first glance don't seem anything like me. Parents, grandparents, dissatisfied and disgruntled Gen X'ers, teachers, "laypeople", conservatives, liberals, the famous, the wise, the wild partyers. But something was there to draw me into reading them.
Funny, isn't it, whenever I think of my blogroll, I hope it isn't identical to anyone else's. I don't care if anyone links me back (about half don't). In a way, what I read is a measure of my individuality--and individuality is something that is so precious to me that I wouldn't lose it even if everyone in the world hated me.
