Public relations.

I would really like it if I could get some feedback from people reading my blog. I don't even care what kind of feedback would it be, any evidence that somebody actually reads it would be in order. It's not too much sense otherwise. What I post to the Internet is what I want to get to the people (and there's hardly any other way I could make myself heard with my social disability). The times I wrote my own paper diary that I didn't want anyone to see are long over.

The one way I found to let people know of my blog is to add it into an online blog list that collects blogs based on categories or particular topics. I googled around a bit and found quite a few such bloglists. I tried sending adding requests to some of them, most notably http://expat-blog.com and http://kiwiology.org.nz Now that over a week has passed and the only one that actually got back to me was expat-blog. That's what I got from them:

Dear goren,

Your blog appears to be too young to be accepted in the expat blog directory (10 posts minimum). Could you please renew your submission after your 10th post?

Thanks for your interest,
Best regards

Victoria
Share your expatriate experience!
expat-blog.com

Most probably the others won't add me for the same reason: "too young". At least, so I suppose, because they didn't even take the labor to explain themselves when not adding me. But how do I get my blog more "mature"? I can't just write something to write something, as they often do to get high post count in many systems where reputation is based on the number of posts rather than on their quality. I positively hate when people do this. There are too kinds of speeches: ones that you make when you have something to say, and ones that you make when you have to say something. And I take my pride in the fact that everything I ever wrote anywhere in the internet, however dull, goofy or emo it might have been, belongs to the first category. I'm not perfect (nobody is) and I won't claim that I'm always saying the smartest things - but I am not a dummy to fill holes in statistics.

But on the other hands, there's not much point to write anything at all, if there's nobody who could read it or comment on it. Most people who just start blogging initially build a support network from their real life friends and acquaintances, but I have none (none that speak English, at least). Thus, I can't actually make my blog bigger without getting at least some feedback from the readers. And I get no readers without being added to some bloglist. And I can't be added to a bloglist until my blog gets bigger. Kind of chicken-and-egg problem, isn't it?