What kind of blog is this, anyway?
For the last few weeks, I've been contemplating what I perceive as the dearth of male equivalents of blogs of this ilk: chatty, reflective posts about life as not-yet-coupled 20/30-somethings. Many of us female bloggers write about dating, and while I would never pigeon-hole stronglyworded as a dating blog, I do acknowledge that, of late, I've been writing a lot about my quest for a guy who is brilliant, hilarious, kind, and interested in me. I've observed that I get the most comments about dating-related posts. We are all intrigued by love (and the pursuit of it) because it is inherently fascinating; most songs, movies, TV shows, and books are about love (to some extent).
I do consciously try to mix up stonglyworded content, because I like to think of myself as a multi-faceted person, and not a JDate whore. Still, the level of analysis that I and you guys devote to my love life makes me curious about male bloggers and what they are thinking and writing about. I've been wondering: where the hell are they?
So the ever-resourceful JDater Girl hooked me up with some guys. There's Chronicles of A Bachelor. There's Joe, who just bought a calphalon pan and identifies as a SJM. There's also the
"single men" links section on grinsnlaughter (which is written by a chick).
Also very kindly, Tamara pointed out that, like a surprising number of couples, she and the Canadian love of her life "met" in the blogosphere.
In case you haven't picked up on the theme, this latest rash of links all send you to Jewish bloggers. Several of their sites link to a "Jewish webring", which I contemplated joining. It could increase traffic and connect me with my community and all that.
And yet I’m hesitating, because, much as I think that my blog conveys my Jewish identity, I don't think of it as Jewish foremost. It's not "Jewish" blog, per se, and if I joined that webring, wouldn't people expect kvetching and noshing? That's just not me.
Similarly, I share Hilary's aversion to the genre of "dating blogs". Yes, I date, and yes, it's entertaining to read and write about my exploits. But when I was in a relationship, I still had plenty to write about, and when, God willing, I fall in love again, I intend to keep you upDATED, just in a different way. So: reading or writing exclusively about dating? Not me, either.
And so I guess that's my conclusion. I would like to read about guys' perspectives on dating, absolutely. But I'm not necessarily looking for a male-authored "dating blog". Not a male-authored Jewish blog. I wouldn't ultimately be very interested in it unless there was a fair amount of content about other topics, and the author came across as a likeminded and cool guy.
Especially since, by definition, he'd be doing 100% of the "talking", and we all know how I feel about that.
Posted by Dori at 5:46 PM
9 Comments
According to an article I read the other day, there are more blogs maintained by women than men. Apparently there are approximately the same number of blogs owned by each gender, but men kind of stop updating. Don't more women have journals, than men, in general?
When I was in a long-term relationship that eventually ended, I did a lot of talking about it with my friends and rehashing what had happened, and how I felt about it, etc. Eventually I got to this point where I was just sick of talking about dating, and wanted to actually do some dating. Just one opinion, and it might not be so applicable here.
L.
P.S. You totally missed out by not coming to trivia. We won, and each got $8 (though it would have been $6.50 if you were there).
And here's a link for your reading pleasure:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/science/18conv.html?ex=1153540800&en=09b59b7f56e27bb4&ei=5087%0A
By the way, I am a man.
Hey Dori, nice to see you visiting my blog more often. FYI...or for the record :) My blog is un-themed. I write about Judaism sometimes (see current post), sometimes I write about Jewish "things". Often I write about my day to day dullness, sometimes it's about teaching, and then there's dating.
Perhaps if it were themed I'd have a consistent readership, but I'm not a piece of board. I'm multifaceted as my blog is too :)
Well, _I_ went for the theme. I thought it would help me keep focused, have a purpose, and fill a niche. I find that I'm loyal to blogs when I feel like I can get to know the authors, as people with full lives, by reading on a regular basis. (I have to admit I like reading the dating stuff the best.) But overall, I will come back because I enjoy reading the everyday adventures of a real person, with a name, and a location, and some detail about their lives, be it job-related, apartment-related, or what have you.
I started off as a dating/find love blog - and when that was (I thought) realized (i.e. Jack) - it became more of a 'Where is my life going' blog and now that I'm in grad school and single, it is very, very quickly becoming a teacher (to be) blog.
Something new every day :)
Oh, and if you're interested in a good guy blog, check out 'So This Is My 30s' on my blogroll - good combo of dating from a men's perspective, sports, and much more.
Searching for 'jdate' at
blogsearch.google.com is interesting - but not quite fruitful at finding interesting male bloggers. technorati.com searches for the same turns up some unseemly results.
http://del.icio.us/ is decent at finding people with a shared interest - you can search for something (like 'jdate') and then follow back to find everyone that's tagged something with 'jdate'.... then look at what else they've bookmarked. But I think most del.icio.us users come from a narrow demographic....
Maybe the loose, unindexed nature of blogs lends them a flair of intimacy? Online discussion technologies seem to become less indexed, less organized which each iteration... a regression from a technical point of view :-\ but obviously the popular preference.
Good luck in finding the single male bachelors out there. In fact I had to put out an S.O.S. ( http://grinsnlaughter.com/?p=65 )for the names of ones for my Single of the Week thread. If you find any let me know.
As for the content of your blog, I came to the same conclusion as you. My blog is about being single. Being me and being single means a lot more than dating. It is part of it for sure and everyone loves those posts. But it also means family, friends, etc.
I found a few "guy blogs" recently (and jewish!):
http://frumstershoppers.blogspot.com/
http://shmuzings.blogspot.com/
I really don't wander around the blog world too much, and I'd always assumed the ratio from guy/girl on here was about even. I've just recently noticed how lopsided the "single bloggers" world is. I suppose I shouldn't complain huh?
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