“I liked you when you were better”

Here’s an excerpt from the best con­ver­sa­tion I had at work today. To set the scene, the sub­ject had turned to (oh God) blogging:

Col­league 1: You’ve got a blog, haven’t you?
Me: Yes, I have.
Col­league 1: I thought so. I used to read you.
Col­league 2: So did I.
Me: Oh. Used?

I was con­soled by the fact that, even when they were reg­u­lar read­ers, they obvi­ously never paid very close atten­tion, or else they would have known about the char­ac­ter­istic para­noia, low self-confidence and the lack of self-esteem. If they had been aware of these traits, then I’m cer­tain that they wouldn’t have dared say any­thing for fear that I might burst into tears right there in the middle of the office.

I did want to ques­tion them about why they were no longer read­ing, but obvi­ously I would never have had the nerve to do that. So I gave them both a beatific smile and went on my way.

Of course, writ­ing this entry has pro­duced a small fris­son of excite­ment at the thought that they might read it and real­ise, with a sense of abject hor­ror, how cruel and heart­less they were in simply dis­miss­ing me as being bet­ter back then than I am now.

Remind me that live audi­ence feed­back is a bad idea, won’t you?