I get it. I used to write a blog back in the day. Like, way back...about 2004-2006ish, right around the time when people like like Jenny Lawson, Stephanie Klein, and Heather B. Armstrong were super-popular (I'm kinda old). But anyway. The point is that I used to write a blog. It was basically just my own musings and a way to "get out of my own head." It was popular--not to the point that I was being offered book deals or got ad revenue (though I was never smart enough to put ads up), but to the point that I was being asked to write for other, bigger blogs, and being noticed by some of the bloggers who were actually making money from their writing. It still wasn't enough. I would spend hours on writing only to delete what I'd written minutes after posting. I had comments and hits, but if a certain handful of people didn't comment or read or notice me the way I wanted them to, then I was depressed.

My point is that people who base their self-worth on outside validation will always need to have more of that validation in order to survive. There is never a finite amount. I had just entered probably the darkest point of my life back then, and I had no other validation--what I got online was it. Things are completely different, now, but I still find myself thinking this way sometimes. I have to limit my Facebook interaction quite a bit because of the fact that I can get too caught up in who is "liking" my status and who isn't...and that isn't reality.

tl;dr...One of the most important things I've learned over the years is to learn the difference between people who truly want to know you, and people who are just curious. There will be precious few of the former, and an insane amount of the latter. Just because someone has 5K followers doesn't mean they all want to know her. And just because you have <150 doesn't mean you aren't worth getting to know, or that the right people won't come along. Sometimes it just takes an annoying amount of patience.