So I decided last week that as part of my fresh start to 2012 that I was going to leave Twitter.

I announced it on Twitter last week and a few people asked me why.  Well, I originally joined  Twitter in the summer of 2009 to help promote this blog and to connect to other parents who, like me, were new to this whole parenting thing.  At first it was fun and I “met” a lot of cool people and steadily gained a small following.

One weekend this past summer, I gained 800 followers in less than 48 hours.  It was crazy.  A lot of my new “followers” were definitely bots, but so many were attacking me that I just couldn’t keep up with reporting and blocking them all.  It was impossible.  I complained to Twitter support.  They suggested that I supply them with a list of all of the possible bot @names, BUT I couldn’t give them a screen shot–I had to type them all out or copy/paste them into an e-mail.  Um, ALSO IMPOSSIBLE.  So I blocked as many as I could but soon gave up.  It was a battle I couldn’t win.

Then I think because I was rapidly gaining followers I started to be featured as someone “Who You Should Follow” by Twitter.  Most recently I was listed in the “Who You Should Follow–Family” category with the likes of HowToBeADad, The Pioneer Woman, Dooce and celebrities.  I was flattered but mostly I was like, “What the–?!  I don’t even say anything important–like 20 people read my blog!”  So, because I was listed alongside all of these super cool people, the number of followers I had increased even more.

And then things started getting weird.

No one was really responding to what I had to say, but people were tweeting to me begging for follow backs, asking me to promote their website/book/music/project, telling me to find The Lord, imploring me to Buy American…the list goes on and on.  And those were the tweets I understood–I’m not even counting the tweets that were sort of gibberish or just contained a link.

Twitter was no longer fun.  I wasn’t connecting with people.  It became this whole other weird thing.

When explaining it to Aaron I likened my Twitter experience to a party.

At first, joining Twitter to me felt like having a few friends over to my house for a get together.  Just a handful of friends–we were just going to hang out and talk and have a few drinks and it was going to be pleasant and fun…no big deal.  But soon other people started arriving at my door.  Friends of friends showed up, and they were cool…but soon it was their friends.  And some neighbors.  Then some shady dudes from down the street…Suddenly things got loud and crowded and jerks were spilling drinks on my floor…

Soon Twitter felt like a raging kegger at my own house full of people I didn’t know.  The people I actually wanted to talk to weren’t around and instead I was trying to force my way through the crowds of loud, drunk people, throwing out the troublemakers.

Finally, with 53,000+ followers I hit the point of “THAT’S IT.  EVERYBODY OUT!  YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO HOME, BUT YOU CAN’T STAY HERE!”  

Too much BS, not enough real connection for me at the moment.  I have 30 days to reactivate my account, if I choose.  And I might do that, but for now I am absent from Twitter.

You can still find me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest and of course, here!