Missing Irony

It use to be, when just sitting around and chewing the fat, you’d talk about sports or the weather or politics. Well, politics was crossed off the list about ten years ago, but “internet activities” has taken a prominent place ever since Facebook seeped into the cultural consciousness.

So an interesting exchange happens when I’m making “internet small talk” with people. The conversation will go like this,

ME: Yeah, I just wrote a blog post on that, it’s really interesting to note …
FRIEND: You have a blog?!
ME: It’s my super-secret blog. Nobody really knows about it.
FRIEND: [snarky comment about my having a blog]

Then at some point in the conversation it will come up that I watch over 50 blogs.

FRIEND: 50! How do you have that kind of time?!

This is the irony: the same people who guffaw over the fact that I subscribe to such a blog list are equally repulsed by the fact that I don’t have a Facebook account (as recently as here). So compare these two comments:

FRIEND: How do you have that kind of time?!
FRIEND: How do you not have a facebook?!

I seem to be the only one who can spot this irony. That’s concerning to me.