The latest post over at Living Single was a guest post by Elliott Lewis titled “Undateable.” That one word could raise eyebrows. I like to say that all of my blogs are about all aspects of single life except dating and becoming unsingle. I have stood by that standard all this time because, well, there’s enough about that other stuff everywhere else, and I’m just not interested in it. It is not my niche. Mostly, I write for and about people who want to live their single lives fully.
I went with the dating theme from Elliott’s post for a few reasons. The dating story built up to his realization that he is probably a quirkyalone. So, the dating experience was a way of coming to a particular perspective on single life that was largely (though not entirely) positive. Second, I had published guest posts by Elliott at Psych Today several times before (here and here), and each was popular. Living Single readers seemed to want to read what he had to say. It is an added bonus to have guest posts from men, since writing about single life is so dominated by women (not just in blogs, but in scholarly works as well).
I thought that the “Undateable” title of the most recent post might mean that many potential readers would just skip over it. I should know by now that I am just terrible at predicting which posts are going to draw the most readers. “Undateable” took off instantly, attracting thousands of page views in the first day, and a few thousand more the next. It easily doubled the draw of my previous post, which I expected to be of great interest, including and beyond the usual Living Single readership. I thought that the question of what counts as normal would be at the heart of what many Psych Today readers visit the site to find out.
Undateable also provoked an intense discussion, including contributions from people who have not posted comments at Living Single previously. Unfortunately, some of the comments were quite nasty to Elliott. I expect some harsh remarks to be directed at me; I like to think that I take most of them in stride. It is different with a guest blogger, though. That almost seems like inviting someone into my home. When I do, I don’t want the guest to have a bad experience.
It was good, in a way, to have so many people reading Living Single, including so many new people. Still, I think that in the future, I’ll keep the dating topic on the sidelines. It can sneak in as an aside, or in a passing reference, but it is not at the center of Living Single or Single at Heart or All Things Single (which really is code for, All Things Single except dating and becoming unsingle).
