The Weird and Wonderful World of Blog Commenting!

Earlier this evening I wandered to Diamond Geezer's excellent blog and read this post about the changes in the way people tend to read and comment on blogs now (well specifically of course, Diamond Geezer's blog), in comparison to a couple of years ago. (He was reflecting that less people seem to comment on blogs than they used to?). So of course I got there and wanted to post a comment. Now, one of the key factors in blog commenting is having something interesting to say - which I generally don't, but I added my two' pennorth anyway. Job done, all very interesting, so from there I went off and visited another of my favourite blogs (along with Diamond Geezer it's listed in my blog roll). I scrolled back to the last post I'd read there to catch up. As it happens, I'd actually posted a comment on that post when I was there (after a while of humming and haa-ing to decide if I was brave enough what with established commenting community and a lot of people with worthwhile things to say). So then I had a look to see what else had been said - and my comment was gone! Now that again had not been the most riveting of comments - just a brief response to a rather dramatic something said in the post - but vanished it had into the black hole of the web world. And with it vanished my courage to step out in the 'popular' places and speak, and risk being ridiculous (another couple of points raised in response to DG's post).
It's funny how the virtual world can take you back into the real one. I find myself these days in a job that requires a lot of speaking, and much of that in front of big groups of people - but I remember clearly the days when I wouldn't open my mouth, even in a small group, or do anything that drew attention to myself. But as that changed I took small steps forward in finding my voice, but it wouldn't take much in the early days to strip away the courage. And in a funny way this little journey through the comments has reminded me of how far I've come, and how easy it is to lose confidence - virtual world or 'real' one!