THREE DAYS AFTER MY RESURRECTION

Benvenuto di Giovanni's The Resurrection, 1491:

Three days after my resurrection, I thought I'd update you all about my return to Adult FriendFinder (AFF).

My main reason wanting to get back onto AFF was to retrieve some blog posts before submitting a blog post to say goodbye to my friends on my terms and not on AFF's terms. Bar for a final goodbye post, I have no intention of blogging on AFF until certain major changes are made to the site.

Before returning to AFF on Wednesday, I was conscious that I needed to be disciplined in my approach so as not to be sucked back into things. In my head, I mapped out a five-step approach to my return. I always like to plan things!

First, I would deal with any mail received on AFF's dating side. There wasn't a lot of mail to deal with. And it was easy to deal with because as I'm now a standard member on AFF, suggesting the site has refunded by gold membership renewal on the day I got banned, I'm not able to read or reply to mail. I did, however, get in touch with those who sent me mail, via their blog or by email, acknowledging their mail and explaining that I wasn't being rude not mailing them back.

The second step was to reply to all comments left on my blog posts that I hadn't replied to prior to my ban. There were a few comments to reply to especially on my last blog post about my stepson coming back - he's now since moved out  again! However, I noticed that after a while of being on AFF, new comments, especially posted in my mailbox, were streaming in. It seems my resurrection was soon noticed by several bloggers even though I hadn't contacted them. I then replied to those new comments.

The third step was to contact those whose blogs I follow and whom I'm on friendly terms with. This step proved be far more time-consuming than I had envisaged - looking back, I perhaps should have submitted a blog post announcing my resurrection and that I'm going to be a lurking and not a blogging Jesus!

I had well over 2,500 alerts waiting for me. Over 1,500 alerts were old alerts already dealt with before my ban. That still left about 1,000 alerts to deal with. With a few exceptions of blog posts submitted by close friends, I only made one comment on one blog post of those whose blogs I follow. This meant a lot of blog posts could be culled. However, it is only today that I got through all the alerts. My comments provoked replies which I also dealt with. From now on, it will be easy to keep on top of my alerts. I'm just going to delete alerts notifying me of a new blog post; I may read a few posts submitted by a few and select number of few friends and even leave a comment. I intend to keep this to a minimum as I don't want to get sucked back into things.

The fourth step is to retrieve some old blog posts. At a glance, it seems all my blog posts are there, though I've noticed quite a few of my comments haven't survived my exile. The latter isn't a problem as it's the blog posts that I want to rescue.

Fifth, and finally, I will submit a blog post to say goodbye. After that, I won't deactivate my account on AFF as I want to be ready to blog again if and hopefully when certain key changes have been made to the site.

A few of my comments/replies I left on AFF this week were predictably denied - some things don't change! Fortunately, they were denied by Tier 1 and not Site Support. All my postings were factual and none were critical of the site. Until I've retrieved my blog posts, I'm going to have to be a bit careful what I post on AFF and even here as I don't want to get banned for the third time until I've saved my blog posts!

During my trawl through my alerts, I came across many postings that were very supportive about the exiles. They were very heartening to read.

Like Jesus Christ, three days after my resurrection, I am now a lurker on AFF. If only I was resurrected on Good Friday and then people could call me Jesus and not Mr Wordy!

Albrecht Dürer's Jesus Among the Doctors, 1506: