I’m gonna be blunt here. Should Xomba play it both ways: be a Facebook-style blogging/social website AND a professional writers’ website? Is it fair to serious writers to force them to kiss butt by writing comments to xombytes/blurbs they might ordinarily not bother reading in order to get others to feel obligated to read their own stuff? Is Xomba just another “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”, tit-for-tat arrangement?

I was bothered by a comment of Nick’s a while back that was meant to be reassuring, about how with the new Xomba, you would be able to set it up so that you would only have to read your friends’ xombytes (and presumably ignore everyone else’s, no matter how well they are written or how informative they are). Why on earth would you only want to read your “friends’’” xombytes? And what constitutes a “friend”, anyway?

Anyone who knows me recognizes that I am not the most social of beings. When I’m around people, either on the Internet or in person, I tend to talk without censoring my words, I’m not good at reading other’s motives and social cues, and I have very little patience or tact with people. But mostly I’m very quiet. I interpret a lot of what passes as social intercourse as out-and-out phoniness and insincerity, although I’ve learned how to do that in order to survive.

I suspect, although I’ve never been officially diagnosed, that I’m an Aspie (have Asperger syndrome, which is a mild form of autism and defined as having “significant difficulties in social interaction, along with stereotypies and other restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests”, according to Wikipedia.) But I don’t consider Asperger syndrome a mental illness. I see it as a normal variant of human behavior in a world in which most people are configured much needier than me in the social realm. So-called “neurotypicals” perceive the insincerity of others too, but it doesn’t bother them like it does me. I guess they just figure it’s the price they pay for keeping a stable of friends.

I read with amusement recently that Bill Gates, who is also a suspected Aspie (many computer geeks are), recently quit Facebook because he complained that too many people wanted to be his friend. Now, most people would love to have an endless supply of friends and probably have no clue why he would not. But to people like Bill Gates and me, that’s downright alarming. For an Aspie, having all those people out there clamoring for your attention is sort of like being exposed to a constant loud noise so that you can’t possibly concentrate on anything else. Way too much stimulation.
 
I decided to take a break from Xomba a few months ago after I found myself overreacting to comments from fellow xombies. I’ve chosen some controversial subjects to write about, including animal rights and human politics, which typically evoke strong reactions. But having to deal with often negative comments from readers, some of whom seem to find willful ignorance a virtue, is exhausting, and I just needed to get away. But my goal in life is to educate, so I then decided to return. Whether or not my Xomba experience “takes” this time is still a question mark.

Be that as it may, I’ve been running a little experiment with Xomba lately that proves my point about it being primarily a social website. Initially I accepted a few petitions from others to be my “friend”, but I’ve completely avoided reading or commenting on theirs or anyone else’s xombytes/blurbs. As a result, I’ve scored a very modest amount of reads of my own xombytes and very few comments, and for the last few xombytes, no comments whatsoever. So either I’ve suddenly become a terrible or terribly boring writer, or my suspicions about Xomba’s social requirements are correct.

If you’re still reading at this point, you may be scratching your head and saying to yourself, I don’t get it. I think it’s great to have people available to talk to so that I never have to feel lonely. What’s so bad about being a social animal, anyway? Well, nothing, if that’s what feels natural to you. If it doesn’t, and if hyper-sociability happens to be a prerequisite for obtaining certain personal goals, then you’re probably in the wrong place as a writer.

I guess my ideal Internet “write site” would be one in which I can stimulate as many readers as possible into learning more about the subjects I’m passionate about while largely avoiding having to deal with the insincere comments of self-righteous naysayers as well as self-promoting flatterers. But the beauty of Xomba is that it’s easy to publish virtually anything you want, and to make a few bucks in the process for my causes. So I’ll stay, for now.