NOW PLAYING: Lurking Is My Life

20 July, 1998
I'm a "Lurker." I lurk on my mailing lists, only very rarely posting anything, but greedily read the threads that others spin (some may consider that good form, actually). Now, part of my mail-list lurking comes from the fact that I get digest versions, and so cries for help are usually answered by non-digesters before I've even seen the original post, so there's no point to me cluttering up the list.

I lurk on the web, too. There are sites I visit all the time, and I never send any kind of e-mail telling the creator(s) how much I appreciate their work. I don't know why exactly, but I don't. I mean, what do I say and not come off as a complete loser? I'm sure most of them would appreciate a compliment, but ... I just lurk.

It's not just the wired world in which I lurk; I lurk in life, too. I saw several of my favorite website authors while I was in San Francisco at Web98, but only spoke with Michael Sippey (of Stating the Obvious fame). I was doing a quick e-mail check on one of the Macs in the Online Lounge, and then jumped out to theobvious.com to catch up on things. Someone next to me said, "Hey! That's his page!" Turns out it was Derek Powazek (the {fray} master) with Michael on the Mac next to me.

I thought that was pretty cool, though I'm sure they not only haven't given it a second thought but probably forgot the first thought of it two minutes later. There were others that I would have been glad to talk to, but a number of things stopped me:

A. I have no guts;
2. They were hanging out with their friends at the time; and
D. What the hell would I say??

"Hi, you don't know who the hell I am, but I really like your website." Which, come to think of it, probably would've been a good thing to say ... My Mom has a gift for that kind of thing -- she's not (as far as I've ever been able to tell) afraid to go up to anybody and say "Hi!" Doesn't matter who they are, what they're doing, she can strike up a conversation with someone.

I've inherited a strong Scandinavian Reserve from my Dad, which generally makes me wait for someone else to make the first move. The Wife asked ME to marry her; I don't know if she figured out that it'd probably take a long time for me to do that or not. So I'm not terribly likely to waltz up to some person I've never had any contact with of any kind and introduce myself. I wish I could.

Yes, I suppose I could work at it -- take some sort of class, force myself to meet and talk to people I don't know -- but it would be almost painful for me, I think. So contrary to who I am, it would take a long time (if ever) before I could get comfortable with it.

So, I lurk.

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