Goodbye, My Dear R - Aka Ex C
From: Bes Z
To: R, aka Ex “C”
Dear R,
How are you doing? I hope you are doing better, and I hope you are feeling better too. The last few times I have seen you around, things have been hectic. I have been busy with a lot of things, and I am sorry I have not kept in touch with you. I know you have noticed I am responding to all of my public comments but not interacting with you outside of my blog.
You may be wondering why I am writing this letter, and whether or not I am writing this letter in order to apologize to you. No, I am not apologizing in this letter. Well, I am writing this letter so that you can know why I have stopped talking to you, and so that you can stop wondering why I am not giving you attention anymore. We had a wonderful time while we were together. Ever since your first comment supporting me while I was starting my site, to the last days of your commenting when I had several other commentors flirting with me also, I sometimes knew that without your support I would have never gotten to the exact place that I am at right now.
Why did I stop kissing you while I kept asking you to kiss me?
Why did we stop interacting then? Well, ever since you stopped commenting on my site, I felt this relationship was not satisfying me. Sure, you interacted through other channels and you sincerely commented when you felt like it, but I want someone who can keep on commenting. I am not after your comments; I just think without comments, I cannot be happy in this relationship. I have needs too. I am so sorry. The day I got back after a romantic dinner with my RSS feed count, and after showing those feed counts to other people who told me I could earn a lot more money with more feed readers and commentors than the readers, I realized that I was right all along: blogging for money is better than blogging for content.
Please do not think that I’m a bad person. I really did value your existence on my site, and even though you are still a reader on my site, I have to focus on the commentors as they add public value to my site. The more comments, the more popularity my site will gain. You have to understand: this is business, and nothing personal. That is why I have to end our relationship and focus on someone else who can better take care of me, and someone who can provide something that I need. I need what every one needs, the most basic need: comments. I need comments, and I need real action that benefits me. I am, unfortunately, not attracted to emotions or honest interest or things like those. I want something that will make others come to my site, and in turn I want something to help my site become more popular.
Even though I faked it all the time, I still cared about your comments!
I know you are thinking that I faked my feelings for you, that I lied to you just so that I can get your comments. Well, the faking part is true, but believe me, I needed more than just comments from you! Sure, my RSS feed count was all I thought about when I was looking at your comments, and every time you e-mailed me a question or tried to talk to me personally I thought of ways to make the interaction more romantic by having you somehow post everything as a comment to add more comment count to my site instead of you contacting me directly, but that does not mean I did not care about you. I really did, I think. It’s just that I realized that instead of commenting you resorted to actually thinking about my articles and interacting with me, instead of commenting or subscribing to my feed count. I do not like the feeling I get everyday when FeedBurner tells me that my number of secret feed lovers that I am cheating with are lower than the number of cheating lovers other bloggers have. I am just not interested in real relationships. I am interested in money. If I can make money by talking and promoting real relationships, please let me know and maybe we can have another date or something.
Let me try explaining this: Remember how when one day you were commenting, I told you how you can become a writer and owner of my site too? Remember how one night when we were lying next to each other, I told you how I wanted to make a lot of money, and how I wanted you to be part of it and…….. hmm ok wait, that was another commentor I was seeing while you and I were dating. Scratch that thought.
Let me try again: The only reason I am writing this letter is to make sure you do not start talking bad things about me, that you do not warn others of my intentions. Trust me: my intentions are very honest, and I am an honest person; you just keep focusing on the parts where I manipulate you. Hours and hours of delving into your comments and trying to feel satisfied, and it just didn’t happen: I simply did not feel happy. Please, everyone always says “I care about you“, without actually caring. When was the last time you saw a blogger actually doing anything revolving around a specific reader from whom they did not need anything? All famous bloggers revolve their efforts around other famous bloggers while occasionally throwing a flower or a bone or some leftovers at poor bystander readers in order to show that they care. I actually did interact with you while I was in the lower level economical class on this ride. Now that I am climbing up, I need to let go of you, my love. I do need you to visit my site regularly, as my Alexa rating still needs to go up; don’t you remember me saying “Our love is forever!“?
Yes, I was dating others at the same time we were together! 
I know that you have seen me flirting with other commentors, even while we were dating. Please trust me when I say this: you are my most important reader, and I trust you. Sure, I do not talk to you anymore, you may have heard me saying “I value your needs” and “I value my readers” when in reality you may be thinking that I value only the ideas I talk about and thus the commentors who actually comment, and that I usually only praise those people who agree with me. I am not the type of person who hides behind my monitor and says bad things about my ex’es simply because they found out how I manipulated them.
You may see me bragging to others on how I am a professional at what I do, how I am the best or one of the better ones, and how “I value my readers“; you may wonder how I value my readers when I do not value you, who is one of my readers? Well, the thing is. You are now R, the Reader, while I am only looking for a FR, a feed reader to increase my feed count, or a C, a commentor to increase my public comment count. You are an Ex-C, an ex-commentor, and ex-commentors scare the heck out of me. Either you are with me and a commentor, or you are an ex-commentor.
It is not you! It is me!
I could not think of a way to end this letter. Due to some miracle, I was watching really sad while enjoying a trip in Las Vegas with one of my new commentor love, and saw the movie “It’s not you, it’s me!” with that lover in the hotel room, and that gave me an idea! I have to say: it is not you, it is me. I just realized how much I enjoy using you, and how I cannot control such a trait. Please forgive me, and please stay around. You can go away and have a romantic relationship with someone else after about 3 months, as that is when I am hoping my site will gain so much attention that I will not need any more emotional attachments. I also heard someone say at the morning buffet today that saying sorry reduces the risk of being murdered by an ex, so here it goes: I’m sorry!
Good-bye! Keep in touch via feed subscription!
Please take care, and good luck in your life! Even though I cannot remember your name nor have I ever cared about your personal life, please realize this: I value you as my ex-commentor, my ex-C, and I value you as a reader.
Yours truly,
Bes Z - 11/15/07
PS: I am going to stop talking to you or interacting with you because you are my ex now. If it makes you forget me sooner: I really did not love you, nor did I care about what you wrote. I valued your comment number, that is all. I am, however, going to keep all your comments, and not compensate or praise you individually and personally and publicly and honestly for everything you have done and all the time you have spent on my site. Soon, when I get enough commentors, I can go ahead and delete your comments too, if that is what you want.
PSS: I might talk against you anonymously, though, as I want to make sure that the few people who can think, like yourself, try to stay away from me. Sorry! I just can’t help it!
PSSS: Almost forgot to tell you: it was my feed count counsel who told me to date you in order to convert you into another feed number, and it was my feed count counsel who is telling me to let go of you as other lovers are standing in line to fulfill my feed count, traffic and commenting needs.
PSSSS: Subscribe to my feed count and support me again, and I might reconsider our supposed-relationship. See, I am keeping options open.
PSSSSS: Can you tell your friends and neighbors to visit my site please? Need more commentors and feed readers! The more commentors and neighbors, hopefully the more chances of some more readers getting dumped by me, which in turn means you will have more people who think like you. See, I care about you!
PSSSSSS: I slept with feedburner and a new commentor, not at the same time, when you stopped commenting. I was lonely, and Google married feedburner! Who could resist that? Sorry!
Ronald Huereca says...
Bes, you bring up a good point in this fictitious letter. Is a reader only valuable if they interact publicly on your site? Are the lurkers and feed readers not as valuable?
I personally like the readers I have, commenters or not. They stick around and put up with my rantings and tend to let me know when they “think” I’m wrong. It’s a nice “checks and balances” relationship.
Simonne says...
I believe all readers are valuable. Even those who unsubscribe form your feed. This morning, I’ve got a reader unsubscribed from my feed, and he wrote me his reasons. I had no idea my e-mail feed has no subject and letters are so small that they barely can be read. This was valuable feedback, although I have no idea how to fix these things.
Bes says...
Thanks for the comment Ronald.
Yes, for so many people a reader is only valuable if they interact publicly, as that results in the site becoming more popular publicly.
I love interacting with readers outside of my blog, and I prefer having readers who become online friends [so I can stop calling them readers
] than having readers that I interact with on a close level. The move from readership to friendship is one of the things I look forward to, when possible: of course, not all readership interactions are made or geared towards friendships.
Simonne, thanks for the comment too.
It is very nice for your reader to let you know why they unsubscribed from your blog. All readers are valuable indeed - it seems that RSS feed subscriptions have created a new trend where those not subscribing to a blog are given lower priority and less attention by many bloggers.
Have you figured out so far why the text is so small and the e-mail feed is showing no subject? Could it be that your current WP theme has modified or is modifying the rss output dynamically? Or maybe Feedburner’s e-mail settings/template needs changing…