The Twitter Conundrum

Do you have a morning routine?  I do: roll out of bed, fiddle around in the kitchen until the husband leaves for work, make him a lunch if I'm feeling especially kind.  Then, make myself a latte, scrounge up some sort of breakfast food, and curl up on the sofa with laptop for Brainless Internet Time.  This is when I catch up on my social networking, read blogs, check email.  I'll think about a post if I'm planning to write one.

Back to the social networking.  I've had a Facebook page for a long time.  I don't link to it here, and I don't link to this there, because right now I'm not ready for my two worlds to mingle.  Were I ever to need an authorly Facebook profile, I think I would create a new one and hide the current one, because I like having that only for family, friends, and basically only people I've met face-to-face.

My Tweeter has nothing to say

Networking with people I haven't met face-to-face is where Twitter comes in.  I start using Twitter sometime last summer/fall--at first just to stalk a few agents that I was interested in, but I have since expanded to follow other people in the online writing/publishing community like writers and editors.  Twitter is a strange beast, and I find myself constantly wrestling with it and how to use it.  Right now I'm following 125 people, so I can't possibly read everyone's updates, which begs the question: why do I follow them?

This morning I saw the post on Query Shark pointing to an article: 13 Reasons Why You Didn't Get Followed Back.  I read it with interest, because although I am following 125 people, only 19 people follow me back.  And that number isn't even accurate, because one of my followers is my husband.  I thought this article would give me all the answers, but it didn't, because basically all it said was: Don't be a Twitter spammer.  I think I avoid these 13 deadly sins, so why aren't people following me back?  Well, why the hell should they?  I'm a total stranger.

And this is why I don't really get Twitter.  I would probably use it more if more people I knew were on it, but they're not.  I've sent replies to a few strangers' tweets if I have something nice or useful to say, but mostly I just find it incredibly awkward to start messaging total strangers, like walking up to a random person on the street and trying to start a conversation.  I guess more people would follow me if I had something important to say or were famous, but does that mean that Twitter is primarily intended for Bill Gates and Lindsay Lohan to spread their word to the huddled masses?

Jill Hathaway wrote a post a few weeks back asking about Twitter etiquette and policy, and whether you should follow back those who follow you.  A lot of her commenters were against following back everyone, and they're right--I think once you reach critical mass on Twitter, following back everyone who follows you would turn your account into a gnarled mess.

Please, folks, tell me:  what the hell am I supposed to do with Twitter?  Do you use it?  Do you like it?  Or are you like me, and find it an awkward way to force more of your awkwardness into the world?