A man has updated his reading progress form “Currently Reading” to “Read” just in case any of his followers are keeping track of how he was progressing through James Patterson’s Miracle at St. Andrews.
Yet nobody, not even his small number of followers, give two shits.
This will bring him to three James Patterson books already this year, so he might have to pepper in some Dan Brown and John Grisham just to diversify his reading list.
The man is worried that future potential followers to be named might judge him based on his lack of headway on such a simple read, he even did it a little early before he actually finished the book.
To keep it honest, he vows to finish it this week.
But again, nobody gives a shit.
This will bring him to three James Patterson books already this year, so he might have to pepper in some Dan Brown and John Grisham just to diversify his reading list.
And you know what, his “Finished” list looks a little light in general, so he’ll back catalogue a bunch of books that he read in high school and college before he got on Goodreads with his Facebook account. The Crucible? Yeah, he “read” it so why not.
He’s read a bunch of books over the years, so why should he not get credit for them?
While he’s at it, he’s going to add a bunch of books to his “To Read” list—maybe a little Michael Crichton or some David Baldacci—which he will never revisit until he logs three months later when he actually remembers to log in again.
But by then he’ll have read a ton of corny books that even he himself will even be too embarrassed to publicize. If caught, he’ll lie and say he had to read them “for some stupid book club.”
Oh wait, don’t forget to update his profile pic; he wears glasses now. Hopefully no one catches this is the same photo he uses on his Tinder profile.
And let’s add a little more profile information so people can learn a little bit about him and his interests. He’s not sure if he’ll put too much personal information on there because he doesn’t want to get catfished (again).
But again, who is all this updating for? He’s not sure, but he’s too invested now to quit. Also, he’s tried to delete his account in the past and isn’t sure how, so he can’t let his weak profile just sit there without any reading updates or completions.
He owes his followers more than that.
And who are his followers?
One is a person he met at a party. They got to talking about books and he actually asked if she would follow him on Goodreads. He shudders when he remembers the look she gave him when he hovered over her shoulder to make sure that she could find him on the site.
The second may or might not be one of his parent’s friends who probably logged on once and then misplaced their login information, never to visit the site again.
The rest are probably eager users who got caught up in the moment when they first created their account and just started adding people to follow even though they had no idea who they were or what the platform was really like, just like he did. He follows several accounts that he added spur of the moment, and now he constantly interacts with their page in the hopes that they will “refollow” him.
But they never do.
So in the dim light of his laptop he makes a few more clicks on his profile before closing the lid, grabbing a Jack Ryan novel off his shelf, and reads quietly before crying himself to sleep.