On this blog, an anonymous reader accessing the Internet through BYU left a comment on a post about Wyview saying only, “Get a life.”

I don’t delete comments unless they are off-topic or spam. Occasionally I sensor comments to make them less obscene. I thought that a comment saying, “get a life” was off-topic and added nothing to the topic, so I deleted it.

The thing is, this isn’t the first time I’ve been told to get a life. I take all such comments about what I should or shouldn’t get getting very seriously. Usually, I find that persons making such comments don’t really spend any time to read over any more than a single post on my blog before making a comment. I do not think they really know me and my situation enough to qualify them to make the suggestion to me about getting a life.

What I think happens, is that someone comes to my blog, and reads a post where I might be critiquing something, or standing up for something I believe in, as I sometimes do. I think sometimes the reader disagrees with what I have written, and takes my stance as a personal attack on them, their affiliations, or their beliefs. They then jump to the conclusion that I have nothing better to do than to attack them, and tell me that I should get a life, which in reality translates to the childing cry of, “stop picking on me.”

I can only assume that if someone complains about a particular post, it means it was particularly effective at not being boring, and that it was written well enough that it stirred up some emotion in someone out there. I can only hope more people tell me to get a life.