You don't sound desperate, you sound smart!While this won't help because you don't know my age, you nailed my feelings and I was nervous about age stereotypes.
That said, it can be pretty disappointing to see a notification for a thread you're following and interested in only to see multiple responses of, "+1"through "+n" which also doesn't really help push conversations forward.
I also wonder if it can invite some of the lurkers into the conversation. I think I agree with @FarmerTan at some level. When you tend to be annoying/over bearing/overenthusiastic/verbose (all these adjectives are applied to me and not farmer tan) it is guiltily nice to get some reassurance that some people found your intended joke amusing.
This post makes me sound way more desperate than I intended.
Me on the other hand, have removed all doubt.
I can POSSIBLY deny all the changes except for annoying and being verbose.