My Complicated Relationship With the Comments Section

Seeing your comments sends me on a wild journey

The comments section has honestly been great to me. It’s been full of thoughtful and occasionally funny responses to the works that I’ve put a lot of effort into.

But opening your comments still terrifies me.

I know it’s irrational, and I know the comments are going to be overwhelmingly positive, but the thought of that one negative comment is just a lot to take. 

And, again, I know it’s irrational and the logical part of my brain can recognize that someone not liking my blog post isn’t a big deal. But this is a department that I’ve found my inner logician has no say in.

And today I am going to take you on the journey I go on every time I get a new comment. I am now going to give you a sneak peek at my inner monologue when you comment on my work.

---

Sweet! I got a new comment! I wonder what they said. I don’t know if I want to find out.

Do they like it? Do they hate it? I bet they hate it. How much do they hate it? I bet they think I’m an asshole now. 

No, they don’t. And even if they did, what the fuck would it matter? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I swear it doesn’t matter.

They’re going to hate me!

Okay, maybe they won’t hate me, but that one part I put in there, it left me feeling exposed. What if they don’t like that one thing? How will I be able to handle it if they hate my little thing? I don’t know if I can take someone disapproving of my thing. And what if they didn’t get the dick puns? Seriously, did you get the dick puns?

I want you to think this is entertaining too. You should leave feeling lighter. I can’t ruin your day by making negativity and bitterness brew in your head the rest of the day. I do enough of that for the both of us. 

But is this too jokey? Am I being too casual? I’m beginning to think I didn’t need to over explain the mid-tier dick pun I made earlier. I drew too much attention to that. Now they’re going to think I’m an unfunny hack. I can’t stand it. Now they don’t even think my dick is funny.

Fuck, I should just do it. Just open the comments. Get over yourself Ryan. The worst that can happen is someone hate-reads this so they can post some contrarian bullshit. That doesn’t matter. 

Except it does. Those hate-readers live in my brain forever and always and can turn me into a bitter old man at a moment’s notice. This is so stressful. I hate opening the comments. But I still need to. I need to know what you think of my work. So I need to do it. I need to check the comments.

Just do it. You can do it. Seriously, do it. FUCKING DO IT!

I looked. Woah, everyone was really positive. Holy shit, I feel amazing! So, you mean to tell me people have been generally good this whole time? That’s mind boggling. Maybe I should have more confidence in humanity.

Maybe I shouldn’t be afraid of the comments I get on literally every post. 

But maybe that discomfort is a sign that I’m doing a good job? Maybe that’s how I know I’m putting myself out there enough? 

But should I even be putting myself out there? Should I be subjecting myself to outside scrutiny like this? I don’t know. 

It feels fulfilling and it feels unnerving. The support is amazing, and maybe even outweighs the dread. But I still want people to think I’m entertaining. How are these confessionals and societal rants entertaining? 

I think I need more dick jokes. But dick jokes have to be done right. If I blow them, they’ll just make my work sloppy and leave you feeling sticky. 

If I can’t use them right and they leave you unsatisfied? Will you ever come back?

No, I think I have enough dick jokes. I think we’re good. We’re okay being totally non-funny for a minute, right? 

Maybe we’ll just stew in this discomfort. Maybe we’ll just sit here and think about how uncomfortable I am with your validation determining my success. Maybe we’ll just exist in this moment, and you’ll have to think about how much I love your support and hate looking at what you actually said. Think about that juxtaposition and try to make more sense of it than I can. 

I don’t even know what I’m going to write yet. What am I going to write? Why am I even thinking about all of this when I don’t even know what I’m going to write?

I’m wasting so much time now. Why am I wasting all this time? I need to focus. I could be doing literally anything right now. Anything would be more fun and productive than thinking about a thing that isn’t really even a thing and won’t happen because it can’t. 

It’s not real. All those other things I’ve made, those are real. These are just random thoughts about nothing. 

FUCK!

I can’t stop now. I really need to stop. Just chill out Ryan. Chill out Ryan. Seriously, chill. It’s fine. You’re going to be fine. Everything you do doesn’t need to be perfect.

Fuck that. That way of thinking is some loser shit. I’m not a loser. I’m fucking awesome! I don’t care how fucking toxic this way of thinking is. I just want to be exceptional. I’ve done all this cool shit to prove how good I can be. Now I just need to show you how good I can consistently be.

And you’re going to see it. The next thing I create is going to be my best thing. You’ll see. It’s going to be great because it has to be great. I can’t allow it to not be great. All I need is an…

I got it! This one is going to blow your freaking socks off. Just you wait and see. 

---

So yeah, that’s basically it. That’s basically my journey from publishing a blog post, to realizing I have to read the comments, to actually reading them, to then ruminating over them until I finally come up with the next thing. And yes, this is basically what I do every time. Hope it was a fun ride! 

I’ll see you in the comments section.

---

Thank you for visiting my site! If you liked what you saw and you’d like to support my work, you can purchase my books here, and subscribe to my email list here so you never miss a post.