On the first day at RVillage.com, I noticed that I needed friends in order to see anything on the Home page, so I decided to start friending some people. At first I was taking my time, reading profiles, and then adding people, but soon my obsessive compunction kicked in and I had to speed things up. Like a game, I saw a challenge and set out to conquer and complete it.
At that point, there were only a little over 100 people listed, so it wasn't an insurmountable task, but by the time I got to the end of the list, it had already grown dramatically in size. There was a voice in my head telling me to keep going, to friend those other people too, but I resisted, and quite maturely told that voice, it could wait for the next day. I mean, how many more was the site going to get in a day? 100 more? I just proved I could handle that, right?
I spent some time joining, reading, and posting to new groups and their accompanying forums. I found myself in the bloggers group, where I posted a link to my blog and started adding everybody else's blogs to my Feedly list. That day, there wasn't much to respond to yet so I posted a few messages myself and then moved onto the next group that caught my eye. At first, I was being selective, seeking out the groups that most appealed to me, but once again, my need to do it all clicked in, and I found myself subscribing to everything that held even the least bit of appeal for me. Eventually though, I had to leave and make myself go do some work.
The next few days were super busy work days and I couldn't spend much time on the site. I noticed though that I was getting responses to the forums emailed to me. That made it so handy to collect all the links to everybody's blogs, and then that took on a life of it's own. I felt this nagging in the back of my head telling me I'd never keep up with reading all these blogs, but there was this other voice telling me if I didn't get them all, I'd probably miss out on the best ones.
The next visit I had some time to look around, there were already like a thousand or something people on the site and I felt a big wave of oh-no-this-just-got-waaaaaaay-tougher! I mean, even if I could find the time to friend so many people, there'd be no way to keep up with all the comments, and blogs and forum posts, right?
So now, a couple of weeks later, it's up to 3,678 people, and you know, I just have to come to the realization that I probably won't win this one. I haven't been able to push myself to go on a mad adding push again. There's just been no time. I have a ton of work to do, and we're leaving town in the RV in a couple of days.
I tell myself: Tracey, pace yourself, post some messages, friend people you enjoy talking to in the forums, give up the game. Some games need to be lost, some quests need to change, you can't always do it all. I'm probably not going to get to know every single person on this site, or read every RV blog and forum post. Just like I have to realize I'm probably not going to see every single town, city and attraction in the world. But damn it, I like to try. It might just be a little slower than I first thought.
Oh btw, you should really come and try the site out. And if you're already on there, send me a friend request, okay?
That's so funny because when I joined, I didn't invite one person to be my friend. I only have one and that's you. And then the other day, a happy camping couple invited me to be friends and I ignored them. Couldn't figure out why they'd ask. Guess they were just like you - a friendly member.
ReplyDeletehehehe That doesn't surprise me at all.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tracy, for explaining how I got all these new friends. Like the O'Leary above...could not figure why they would want to friend me? I actually ignored some requests, then felt bad and friended them.
ReplyDeleteGlad to be of help Lynne! It does seem funny to friend total strangers, but it's the only way to make the site work well really. If you stick to people you only know in real life, then you won't have much going on, on the home page.
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