The John Scalzi Experiment

Writing this gives me joy. Why? Because I win either way. Tee hee hee. I just read a post John wrote over on his site about his commenting on other blogs. It’s very interesting, and while I’m certain I won’t be the only one that baits him — I don’t know that others “win” by just posting. Ahhh, the joy. Here are the two scenarios:

1) John reads, but doesn’t comment.

See, he pretty much guaranteed that he’d read this post. On his site, he said he would. I’ve both used his name and linked to his blog. If he doesn’t read it, that makes him incompetent, and/or a liar. While the first is more ego-bruising, either would likely be unacceptable. But here’s the deal, he can’t validate a silly comment-baiting blog post with a comment. I mean he CAN if he wants, but it pretty much negates the “less than one percent” rule he outlined on his site. I mean really, this post is pure nonsense. By making it nonsense, I force him not to comment. So you see, his lack of commenting (while we KNOW he read) means he’s just dancing like a mute monkey for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be sneaky and get him to comment with some “neener neener neener” post. It’s just by the very nature of this blog entry that I’ve forced him to ignore it. Still, being forced to ignore something is, for me, funny. I haz power over John, hehehehe. I relish the hesitation. I relish the internal struggle regarding whether or not to comment. Ahh, sweet victory.

2) John comments.

This is a little more tricky. See, it seems that he would just comment to prove he’s not incompetent in blog-searching, or to prove that he can do whatever he wants. I don’t think he’s commented here before, so he can’t claim that “out” as a reason commenting would be more likely. I don’t know John in meatspace (Yes, we’ve met, but no more so than any other fan. We don’t send each other Christmas cards. Our dogs don’t go on playdates. Our daughters don’t have slumber parties with each other.) So if John comments, I suppose I feel I’ve won because I summoned him like a genie. Dance monkey, dance.

My ultimate suspicion is that John won’t comment. I think the justification will be that a stance of non-interest seems to be the most ego-satisfying. If there is a comment, it will likely be something like “heh” and nothing else. Having more important things to do, you see, seems rather, well, important. I take great joy in knowing that regardless of the outcome, there will be a , “to comment or not to comment” debate going on in John’s head.

Your waffling, it pleases me, John. 😀