I wonder, a LOT, about a lot of things, what with there being so much to wonder about in this universe. And when I use the word wonder, it includes all of its meanings like awe, ponder, be curious, feel doubt et al. My latest wondering has been of the curious kind regarding the followers of this blog, and also my page over at Facebook. Add to that the rarely Twitter account as well.

Whenever I get a notification that I have a new follower (and if time permits), I go check out their blog page or profile to see if I can find any clue as to what prompted them to click the ‘follow’ (or ‘like’) button.  Some I know are merely looking for reciprocity and/or to fatten page hits. There is nothing to wonder about the whys and wherefores of THEIR actions. So it is about those other than them that I wonder.

Some among them I call ‘drifters’. It is as if they found your page while aimlessly drifting along and decided to follow/like it because they had nothing better to do. Oh, what the heck, let me like this page and be done with it, or something of the sort.

Take, for example, this young man who ‘liked’ my page on Facebook. His profile showed no indication that we had ANYTHING AT ALL in common. It most certainly was the page of someone who DID NOT read blogs. And yet there he was, ‘following’ me, never to be seen again after the good deed was done. Was it the profile picture ? Was it the cover photo? Or was he merely trying to enter the Guinness Book of World records for the Maximum Number Of Pages Followed?

Then there are those (and these are on Facebook too, and on Twitter) who are specifically interested in certain parts of the human anatomy. Nobody needs any elaboration on what those are, the parts I mean. But why would they follow poor old me? I have nothing to show (or on show) other than my uncovered mug plus (dubious) writing skills. It annoys me that they think my face, the only one I have, can be used to adorn their page as the one among the ones they follow. No way! So I promptly ban them.

Coming to WordPress (as also Twitter), there are another kind of followers who stand out. They are authors of new books, fresh and still warm and just out of the oven. They won’t interact with you and you’ll not see them again after that first ‘follow’, much like the drifters. I bet their action of following was meant to give you a hint that YOU should follow THEM. Umm…. errr, I have seen through your ruse Sirs, Madams.

The ones who REALLY PIQUE MY INTEREST aren’t the reciprocity seekers, drifters, the ‘anatomists’ or even the new authors, but other bloggers like me. How did they happen to find my blog, or the Facebook page of the blog? What made them stop and read? Which was the exact post they read? What about it attracted them enough to follow the blog? Was it the writing, or the topic, or a combination of the two that decided for them? The questions go round and round in my head dying to be asked. Sigh, one can’t just bombard people with queries unless your intention is to scare them away and that certainly is not mine.

Well, some of the followers could be those who dislike my writing and/or views and want to keep an eye on me and hence follow me but keep mum. Yup, one cannot totally discount THAT possibility.

To those of you who have left a comment and let me know the reason you decided to stick around, a big THANK YOU! ❤

©Shail Mohan 2016

Day 5 NaBloPoMo 2016