(See? I can't even type it without the hashtag. :-/ )
My story is the same as most of you, I suspect. I joined Twitter a couple of years ago because it was new (to me) and kinda cool. Mike & Mike on ESPN2 referenced the Twitter accounts of various athletes. I saw hashtags on my TV screen, in magazines, virtually everywhere it seems. So I created an account.
For the longest time I had four followers - my sister-in-law, a co-worker, a woman who had a crush on me, and Paula Poundstone. Now, don't get the wrong idea - I love Paula, but she hasn't a clue who I am. If you approached her and said "Hey, Steve Benway says 'hi'!" she'd most likely smile and say "Great, how's he doing?" because she's that nice, but she would have no recollection of ever having heard of me. However, she HAS favorited a couple of my tweets, and RT'd me once or twice, so in my head we're THIS close to being actual IRL friends.
Then a funny thing happened - I began running. I run early in the morning with my dog, and there aren't a whole lot of people willing to drag themselves out of bed at 4AM to run with me. Zeus has no choice, and he's always happy to get out of the yard, even if it means running in circles for 30-45 minutes. Mrs. B, on the other hand, becomes violent if anyone disturbs her before 6:15AM (8:00AM on the weekends), and I know better (after nearly fifteen years of experience with her) than to shake THAT tree.
So I began casting about for different ways to make connections with other runners, and Twitter seemed to lend itself wonderfully to that task. The list of people I was following slowly evolved from the feed for Men's Health magazine and 80's hair-metal bands to runners posting their times/distances and the feed for Runner's World magazine.
And I began posting my times and distances as well.
Now I should make it clear that I'm not a social media newbie - I've been on Facebook for years. However, not many of my Facebook friends are runners. In fact, I took quite a bit of good-natured ribbing for posting my morning runs every day.
Twitter is different, though. I've made actual connections with runners across the country. I've tried to mainly connect with runners who are better than I - marathoners and half-marathoners, experienced runners, fitness buffs and nerds - and I've made some very real friendships along the way. These are the people who will check with you to make sure you're okay if you miss a day, who are genuinely interested in your success and know you're genuinely interested in theirs.
But no one really talks about the dark side of Twitter. Oh, I was warned. When I started to become more involved in it, I also started to push it on other people as well. One friend told me that she had been into it years ago, but had to quit because it began to take over her life. [Happy to report that I've gotten her sucked back into it, just like any good pusher would do! :-D ] I scoffed at her, secure in my belief that I could manage my time online as well as offline.
And that should have been my first clue, when I began referencing the two aspects of my life as "offline" and "online." But I ignored the warning signs. I began to crave followers, following anyone I could find, trying to grab low-hanging Tweep fruit...
Finally, something clicked in my head, and I knew that I needed help. I also knew the only one that could help me...was me. I started by scouring the list of people I was following - anyone that was not a special interest that related specifically to running (sorry, Jimmy The Bartender and Jerry Seinfeld) or a runner whom I'd followed and never received a reciprocated follow (you know who you are...well, I guess not, since you won't see this blog) was gone. I whittled the list of people I followed down to twice the number of the people following me - as I type this, the ratio is 381/211, a very respectable following-to-follower ratio for some dude in the midwest who isn't famous and just likes to run.
But my story doesn't end there...
I had just finished my morning run. My normal practice at that point is to attempt a second plank (oh, what a joyous day when my second plank after a three mile run exceeds two minutes!), pet and hug Zeus (fragile Doby ego, you know), and then write up and post my run to Daily Mile and Twitter. This usually takes 5-10 minutes, depending upon how verbose I'm feeling that morning and how much coffee I've already ingested.
My mistake, after accomplishing all of this, was to check my feed for new Tweets. I had a number of them, and as a couple were back East and one was in London, they were wide awake and ready to talk.
Suddenly, I realized that a bored Zeus was nudging me from the back seat, it was starting to get lighter outside, and there were more walkers and runners at the park than I was accustomed to seeing at 5:20AM...because it wasn't 5:20AM, it was 5:45AM, and I should already be home and in the shower so that Mrs. B would have enough hot water for HER shower at 6:15AM.
So I put down my phone, started the car, and started for home.
Not before tweeting about it, of course:
By the way - I had most of this blog composed in my head by the time I reached the house ten minutes later. Is there a support group for this sort of thing? I certainly hope not...
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