How's your morning? Kind of relaxed? Maybe a little slow? The calm before the storm of what will likely be a busy holiday weekend? Maybe you'd like to participate in a quick little low-impact social experiment.
I noticed this morning that Summer Vacation's hit count had gone up overnight to just a little south of 5,000. This number would be a serious benchmark for me, and one that I decided I'd like to reach today. The problem is I don't really have anything interesting to say right now that would inspire the comments and likes it would take to get people curious about what's on this end of the link. I've learned that responses are part of the pattern: The posts that get the most individual hits are the ones that have a lot of people liking them or commenting on them.
For my end of this experiment, I'm going to pretend that I wrote something either very funny or touching or personally revealing, then published the post and put up a link. If you, the person reading this right now, is willing to participate in this experiment, I'm asking you to either Like the post where you found this link, or -- even better -- comment on it. But for this to work your comments would have to be some variety of fiction that would make people think there is something so interesting here that they would be compelled to click the link and find out what it is. Comments shouldn't be overly specific, but more along the lines of "I never would have guessed that" / "I kind of suspected you felt that way, but I wasn't sure" / "Don't worry -- I've done the same thing many times and everything turned out all right!" / "I think it's great you can share something that personal and still joke about it" or whatever might come to mind for you. Have some fun with it. (For the record, I borrowed the title of the post from a song. It seemed appropriate for this ruse, and appropriately vague.)
The only reason I think this might work is because I suspect many people would agree that one of my defining qualities is an acutely introverted personality, and if they think I'm letting people see something behind that mask they might become curious to find out what it is. Of course it's equally possible that this is going to sail right off the radar for everyone and my hit count will barely move. It is the day before a national holiday after all, so this could be a bad day to try this. And it's more than possible that I find the things I write about on Summer Vacation much more intriguing than anyone else does, so few people will bother following the link anyway. I guess that's why I see this as an experiment.
So. If you did click the link and read this, I hope you'll at least go back and like it just to perpetuate the gag. I also hope some people will invent comments to write in response that won't give away what's happening here. I fully understand that leaving a comment does make you complicit in what is really just a silly "Made you look!" prank, but I don't think it will work as well without that element, so I hope at least a few people are game. If it makes any difference, as a way of showing my appreciation to anyone leaving a comment, I promise to truthfully answer any question you ask at a later time, whether it's something you think actually would be a deep and dark secret or it's just something you're curious to know; I fully acknowledge that being so introverted I don't often let my guard down. So if there's something you've ever wondered about, here's your chance. (Disclaimer: Any questions would have to go through private messages or be asked in the real world - this is a question you earned with a comment, so the answer isn't going out to the public domain.)
So to anyone who has bothered to read this far: If you plan on helping the cause with a like or a comment, thanks! And to anyone who doesn't usually read Summer Vacation posts but read this because you fell victim to a harmless little prank, well - gotcha! I hope you aren't upset that I used up seven minutes of your day. And hey, now that you've found the place, why not look at that archive list over on the right side of your screen and see of there are older posts you might find interesting enough to read someday? I promise all of the others are real.
Suddenly this whole idea seems ridiculous and self-indulgent, but as long as nobody's getting hurt, what's wrong with a little ridiculous once in awhile? Now to hit "publish" and see what happens....
Have a great Independence Day weekend! And thanks for visiting.
