Do you feel guilty when people follow you but you don't follow them back?

[Enbrethiliel]

+JMJ+

I ask because some really great book bloggers signed up to follow my blog this week, but I didn't reciprocate. My main reason for demurring was that they specialise in genres I'm not really passionate about. I can understand the rationale of "I'll follow you if you follow me," but I like my Blogs I Follow list to reflect my actual blog reading rather than my networking.

Thoughts?

[Jessica Stern]

I don't want followers. I want readers. I used to follow all my followers, but too many people seem to follow just to get the reciprocal follow ... what's the point? I will definitely go and check out someone's blog if they follow me, but I won't follow them unless I see something I want to read.

I feel really guilty about it, though.

[Jennifer Robertson Quirion]

I agree with this. I do enjoy having active followers. Having the most followers isn't necessarily a better blog. I enjoy the interaction with readers.

[Jennifer Robertson Quirion]

I enjoy following blogs for great book recommendations. Honestly, I'm not sure who signs up to follow my blog. I do tend reciprocate with comments. If I don't have time to check my google reader, I will see who commented on my blog and see what's going on in their reading world.

[Marce]

I followed so many when I started last year as I thought it was protocal, sigh, now I have many that I want to cut but I feel guilty to do that actually. I want to do better on visiting the blogs with similar interest and great topics I am interested in. It is more important for me to be a great commenter not just a # a follower.

I have to make the big step in just cutting some though.

[Enbrethiliel]

+JMJ+

I think that if they're really big blogs, they won't really mind if they suddenly lose a follower. If you feel really guilty about hurting the blogger's feelings, maybe you could send him an e-mail to explain that it's nothing personal, that you still wish him well, etc. =)

When I switched from religious blogging to book/movie/TV blogging, a lot of people followed me from my old blog to my new one. Soon it became clear that I was doing something completely different, and a couple of them stopped following. It was a small dent in my ego, yes, because I had been thinking of those old readers as friends and had hoped they would still want to "talk" even if I wasn't blogging about the main thing we had in common any longer. So I lost them both as followers and as commenters; but I don't fault them for not reading what doesn't hold their interesting. I think I would have liked a "goodbye" e-mail from some of them who just disappeared, but since I don't do that myself, I can't really expect it, can I? =S

[Kathy]

I was totally feeling the guilt, but after reading (most of) these posts I'm feeling much better about it. I had actually just blogged about the "to follow or not to follow" dilemma, and in one of the comments to that post, a fellow blogger directed me to this thread.

So here's what I have decided to do instead of feeling guilty: I only follow blogs that interest me. That's basically what I was already doing, but now I've given myself permission. ;) I figure it's better to not follow from the get-go than to become a follower and then un-follow later.

[Kathy]

I have a poll about this in my sidebar. Would love to see how you would vote!

[Enbrethiliel]

+JMJ+

Thanks for directing us to your poll, Kathy! =)

I chose "No, I only follow those blogs that interest me the most", and was tickled to see that, as of this moment, the other four people who have answered the poll all had the same answer!

[Kathy]

Thanks for voting! It's so nice to find out that most other bloggers (you know, from my totally scientific survey of such a broad pool of respondents) feel the same way that I do about it. Helps assuage the guilt. :)

[Lesa]

Hi Kathy-- So happy to see you here! I thought this thread would make you feel better. If you explore a bit, there are lots of interesting bloggy discussions going on.

:o)

Hey E-- I am one of those four voters.

[Kathy]

You are totally right--this thread definitely made me feel better. Thank you for pointing it out to me!