I don’t know how big some of the posts on the Odyssey get across the whole internet, but the very first article at the top of the home page is a post I read around the time it was posted, and has since garnered a lot of comments on facebook, the “You May Have Worn The Prom Dress With Him, But I Get To Wear The Wedding Dress” post. “What,” many people wondered, “was she thinking?” I think the answer lies in how the writing process and image of the Odyssey really works for the writer.

There are a million things to write about but there is a reason why the writing and amount of topics that get posted to the website seems so similar and limited. When I’m considering what to write I can strike certain topics out just by how they don’t fit into the usual way of writing about a topic on the Odyssey. I’ve noticed there is a certain uplifting voice that is used in most posts, like you just heard some great advice and now you and the writer know everything will be alright. Now this is just all fanciful wishmaking as those posts on the Odyssey don’t really make any real sense and are quite vague. It was in this veil of positivity and self-confidence that I am sure lead to the post. All the comments were about how the girl who wrote this was crazy and wondered what she was thinking when she wrote it. There are all these posts across the website that exude this positivity and confidence about themselves and also give humble brags to how much better they are than their boyfriends’ exes. So that’s the kind of headspace she was coming from when she wrote that. If you look around in the archives and even at the front page of the website, you can see other posts like that, where someone is writing in that same humble brag kind of way about their own triumphs or good luck. It doesn’t make them crazy or weird, just following the trends of the writing on the Odyssey and not having the greatest communication skills when presenting her idea. It’s just a sign of pride, the same kind we all have but it is put in a particular way that is easy to make fun of when you can just leave your comments and not think anything about it after. Especially when that damning evidence that someone is a bit obsessive comes without the context of the style of writing on the rest of the website. I’m not saying that this kind of writing is good or this kind of public display without considering the possible ramifications is smart, but it isn’t worth all the trouble the girl got over it just from one random post on the internet. You can all make your value judgements and pretend you’re right about everything, or just accept that a certain headspace for writing combined with a need to write something for the week leads to a post that at first glance appears to be a bit too involved in someone’s personal life.