Blog Comments.. where are they?

Last year, in 2011, I posted 678 articles. Out of those there were a total of 272 comments made. At least half of those were mine in which I responded, which means I only had about 136 comments all year. About 1 for every 5 articles posted.

What Does that Mean?
(a) People don't give a hoot?
(b) People agree with all of them?
(c) People don't think my opinions are worth squat?
(d) People don't like my responses and don't want to get in a debate with me?
(e) People think I'm really screwed up (something wrong with me)?
(f) I'm not posting any topic of interests whatsoever?
(g) Am I too opinioned/argumentative?

I'm not sure what this means, but one thing is for sure. Some bloggers can go w/o posting for weeks, then get dozens when they do. I've seen other bloggers post on identical topics and get dozens of comments.

I've deliberately posted some very controversial stuff seeing if I'd get a rise out of people. I've posted short. I've posted long. I've covered every topic conceivable to see if there was a particular spike in interest. I've posted on things that meant a lot to me personally.

I sift through 200 to 400 RSS feeds a day to cherry pick what other blogs are not covering. All with none to only a few responses. I receive between 150 up to 500 page views a day. So I know a lot of people are visiting.

I've linked on my sidebar to nearly 50 other blogs. In turn about only 4 others have linked to this one. I've sent back channeled emails to other bloggers. Some with encouraging words, off the record comments or with information. Only four other bloggers are good about acknowledging my correspondence. Is this because of my anonymity? Is it because I'm not schmoozing by pressing the flesh with them?

This doesn't mean I will stop posting, but it is kind of discouraging when I put a lot of effort and time into this. Anything less then 10 comments from 10 different people to this post and I will take this as being disregarded. If there's one thing worse then being disagreed with... it is being ignored. Sorry if I sound needy, but since I do this blog for free, all I'm looking for is a bit of encouragement for my efforts.

Pending the failure to garner even 10 different peoples' comments.. I need to do a lot of rethinking going forth, don't I?