When I first started blogging back in 2004, a lot of others started right about the same time.  A lot of those people aren’t around any more, but those who are?  Most of them are my friends.  We’re friends for many reasons, and when I say that we are “friends,” what I am actually saying is that these people and I are. . . FRIENDS.  Yes, THAT kind of friend.  The real kind.

Why is that, you might ask, and well you might.  The answer is simple.

We are friends because we have something in common.  We KNOW what it is to be a blogger.

Real bloggers aren’t transients.  They don’t get all excited about starting to blog, write a couple of posts, get tired of it, and drop out.  REAL bloggers are here for the duration.  REAL bloggers love blogging so much, we’d rather sit at our computers and participate in blog-stuff than. . . well, than do almost anything else!  REAL bloggers have to watch the clock carefully, lest we ignore important real-life things.  However, REAL bloggers know how to do that!

Real bloggers go to conventions and meet each other.  Real bloggers sprinkle terms like “Twitter” and “Stumble” and “Jim Turner” in their casual conversations with each other.  Real bloggers shake their heads in pity when they encounter people who respond to perfectly legitimate questions like “What’s your Twit SN” with nothing but a blank stare.  I mean, what’s UP with those people?  Why don’t they KNOW?

Bloggers know that the Blogosphere is a real neighborhood; there’s nothing make-believe about it.  Bloggers know that the Blogosphere is inhabited by PEERS, and in the Blogosphere, peers don’t have to be the same age, or even the same generation.  If someone is a real blogger, he/she KNOWS.  Bloggers are peers.

Real bloggers don’t live in fantasy-land, online.  We have OTHER lives, too.  Usually, bloggers have very full and fulfilling lives both online and off.  It’s fantastic, really, the way real bloggers perceive the universe!

Bloggers’ children grow up in public.  The Blogosphere knows how everybody’s kids are doing in school, who won the spelling bee, who struck out in tee-ball, and who had a dental appointment yesterday afternoon.  Bloggers sympathize, and congratulate, and remember birthdays.  Bloggers are people who show up for school conferences, and pack wholesome lunches for their kids, and aren’t easily taken in by advertisements and scams.  Bloggers, on the whole, are definitely above-average people.

There are new bloggers every day, and I welcome them with open arms.  However, it’s the bloggers who are in it for the long haul, who will STILL be blogging five years from now, and ten years, and twenty, who interest me the most.  I have a lot of friends in the Blogosphere, and I want them to stay. 

Then again, those whose hearts aren’t really into blogging probably aren’t comfortable in the Blogosphere anyway.  Some of them claim that they’d really like to blog, but they just don’t have time.  Sorry, but real bloggers don’t buy that excuse.  Real bloggers MAKE time.  Take a good look at the time-clock on most blog posts.  Does the term “night owl” ring a bell?

That’s because real bloggers KNOW.  We know.  And we love it.