All the time you can find posts of people saying that they don’t feel part of the bookish community, or how they don’t have friends and each time I see this I roll my eyes. Sorry, I do. I’m always left wondering what are you doing to garner friends in the bookish community. Are you expecting people to just “come up to you” on the internet and just be your friend? If so, you need to change your expectations. Also a lot of the friendships that you see happening on the internet did not happen overnight! They took months sometimes years to become what you see on the internet! It’s okay to be jealous, but it’s not okay to let it taint your view of the entire community. As a friend told me, find your tribe. They are there, but they’re just spread out a bit.
In order to have a friend, you have to be a friend. You have to be willing to put in the time to try and foster relationships and you also have to understand that not every person on the internet is meant to be your friend. Building platonic relationships take just as much work as building romantic relationships. Are you commenting on their content and doing it in such a way that leads to more discussion or is it just a “Love your video! New subscriber!”? Also, understand that it’s easy to get distracted on the internet and that just because it seems like people are ignoring doesn’t mean they are. They might have seen the notification and just forgot to respond to it. That happens! I do it all the time and then it’s like a week later I’m responding. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Sometimes I take a peek at something, but don’t have the time to respond right away and then because the notification is gone I forget about it.
You also can’t expect to be given everything and constantly take from others without giving something in return. That’s toxic. It’s hurtful plain and simple. Also, don’t try to become friends with someone in order to build yourself up. That’s rude. You also have to respect people’s boundaries! If people say they just can’t do it right now, let them have some space to breathe. The internet only shows so much of people’s lives, and sometimes we assume we know more when we really only know a fraction.
I posted a video on my youtube channel about this, that is not nearly as blunt as this post, but I felt like the blog needed some tough love and youtube needed something a little nicer. Feel free to watch! What have you done to build relationships in the book community? What is some of the advice that you have for others? Let’s talk down in the comments! Until next time,
Keep Turning the Pages
India
Life is a Page Turner 