The rundown

[channonyarrow]

I begin to suspect that I should have another journal that no one knows. There are loads of things I'd love to discuss, even just as theoretical concepts, that have occurred to or around me lately, but I can't. The people involved by and large read LJ, and it's not fair to throw their issues out for discussion by me without their knowledge that it will hit them like a bat when they go to check their flists.

I could say that these are not my stories to tell, but frankly, I don't believe that. I believe that the minute I am involved in the story, it is mine as well, and I can and should discuss what happened and how it made me feel. There's a difference between reporting an event that happened to other people and discussing something that happened to me. It just so happens that I am usually not the one things are happening to, I am the one they happen around.

I feel like I might go out on a limb today and try to discuss one of these stories, since it's something that people have been bringing to me for years now, but the risk is pretty high that I'll lose some valuable friendships if I do that.

Catch-22.

How valuable are these friendships if they are generating situations that I cannot discuss because the people involved would be mad for discussing them here? Are they actually people I want to be involved with? (an interesting typo replaced "people" with "things" there, scarily enough) I wouldn't say something like "Jane called yesterday and she was just hysterical because it turned out that Dean had hijacked an airplane to get to his mail-order bride who was stranded in Kuwait, the love slave of Jim-Bob the Oil Millionaire Extraordinaire."

No, it would be anonymous discussion of my feelings. But my feelings on so many of these things are so rarely positive (hence my desire to, you know, write about them) that I think it would be perceived as bitching and moaning, which it would be, but not maliciously, which I think it would also be seen as.

As it stands, I can't discuss the problems I have always had at relating to people on a sympathetic level - I just don't. I can't discuss my views on suicide, mental illness, or medication. I can't discuss why I have such issues with two of the three. I can't discuss that I'm being manipulated by someone who's really quite crap at it, and it's becoming a turn off, making me not want to do what they want simply because it's all they discuss.

And now that I've pissed off - at a rough guess - five people, perhaps I should quit digging. But I think it defeats the point to make a blog part of a community. I can't express my feelings when I know that the people I'm interacting with are going to read this and going to see it as part of a public forum. And I have no idea who all reads this.

I do not have the security (however stupid it was to believe) that I had using Blogger, because I was not part of any comms. I had no idea who my readership was, beyond Tararaven, Lzz, Hilarityallen, and Codesmith, simply because there was no other way to track than by comments. My thoughts there could occur in a vacuum, to all intents and purposes. I didn't have to censor the way I feel that I do with Livejournal.

It's a quandary. I don't believe at this point that switching back to Blogger is the solution, and that's not what I'm talking about. I want to know what stories are public domain, and how far am I willing to go in pissing people off by reporting my feelings on stories that involve both of us.

Once, when a friend of mine killed himself, I wound up writing a letter to him, that obviously could not be sent. Rather than sending it, I took it to the library and put it in a book that I pulled off a shelf at random. It may not get read for 50 years, it might have been read the next week. I like to think it'll get where it needs to go, just like the letter that I ran across in a book, from a woman to her boyfriend, discussing some of the issues in their relationship, came to me at the right time.

This is not that letter, and the internet is not a book. I have no idea who's out there.

Comments

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

If there are specific people you think you might offend, you could create a custom friends list. I'm not keen on that as if they find out it exists, trouble could be caused, and I would feel vaguely guilty about the secrecy involved. I think it's legitimate to discuss these things so long as you can do it without giving details which reveal the identity of the people involved. I may of course be saying this because I'm perfectly comfortable with the gray areas of my past turning up in your blog, just so long as my name isn't attached to them in some way. It's a tricky one.

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

Actually, I am fully comfortable with the things we have between us (and doesn't that sound scary) because they are resolved issues, or resolvable to both of our satisfaction/utter exhaustion/disinterest in subject.

I don't really like the custom friends group, either, because then I have to figure out who I can include - if Person A is friends with B and C, but only talks to B, if I fuck up and leave Person C on the friends list, Person A will see it when they read Person C's journal.

And the secrecy issue doesn't make me happy either - "Here, I've spilled all my issues with you as a form of blowing off stress, but in a way that means I can wimp out on telling you."

[darumaseye.livejournal.com]

I fully know what you mean. Although I honestly got burned once by comments in Blogger (I think you know what I'm talking about), so I don't think any system is foolproof. Personally, I figure as far as things between you and I go, as long as there's no name attached and you've shared the bitch with me first, go ahead. It's not like you're going to rant at me about things you haven't ranted about before.

Then again, I have no tact.

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

I don't know...it's not so much an issue of tact as one of deciding how much I value these relationships that are stressful. I could relieve my stress via blog, which would piss them off but make me feel better, or I could keep my mouth shut and discuss the issues in extraordinarily vague terms, which makes no one feel better. Or I could break down and become a mindless robot and just support all decisions made by all parties in an effort to keep the peace.

None of these appeal.

[jkivela.livejournal.com]

My friend Heidi has (or had) a web page that only she knew the link to. And she posts things there that no one else can find, unless they, by chance, guess the url and find it. So you could try something like that, just for venting. Just give no one the address or LJ name. The only problem with LJ is that someone could randomly find it, but how likely is it for one of the people who shouldn't read it, randomly find it.

[juniperlore.livejournal.com]

there's an option on LJ to make the post private...

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but that gets back to the option of friendslocking it. I use this as a discussion forum, and it's not one if I can't say it so that people can hear it. These are my stories too; the issue is one of whether or not I want to piss off the other person involved by ripping into their stupidity.

[melpamene.livejournal.com]

If people unload on you, you have every right to unload from yourself. I fully agree on the terms that if someone pulls you in, you ARE part of it now. The person has given you the confidence by emotionally attaching you to it.

The only catch, which I think has been mentioned, is there is the confidence issue. People who speak to you are speaking to you and probably don't want the rest of the world to know.

Private friends lists are a pain, because how can you justify which friends goes on which lists to read want kind of entry?

On LJ you can make entries Private. They can only be viewed by you and you only.

Or you could make a friends-only journal where it's purpose is SOULY for that. If people join, they join knowing they may be openly discussed. That way you are cleared (and perhaps disable commenting or something).

And on a totally different level, you are always, ALWAYS more than welcome to discuss any topic with me in full confidence. One thing I find in us is to be able to discuss in a very diplomatic, intelligent level. I've brought my petty issues to you, and it would only equal to extend you the same invitation.

I think I've successfully rambled on your LJ enough...

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

I may do that now, make friends-only posts about people in the friends-group if I need to vent. Because realistically, nearly everyone on my flist is someone I talk to or am likely to talk to in rl, so it's not different from coming to work and complaining about someone's stupidity. I still worry that I will offend the people involved, but maybe if they don't understand that I am saying what I need to say (and I'm not holding myself up as the saint of all that is pure and wonderful, so feel free to bitch about me if you want) rather than saying it in an inappropriate situation.

I mean, it's well and good to say that I'll do what I want, but it's like listening to a pyromaniac in the midst of angst about lighting a fire and saying, "Oh, look, BP's having a sale on gas!" Not appropriate to the situation. And as you in particular know, I tend to get very Vulcan/impassionate about a lot of emotional topics.

[lzz.livejournal.com]

I was thinking along these lines the other day, and I suddenly remembered a superannuated concept that I was once very familiar with, called a "paper notebook".
Then I carried on writing on LJ *sigh*

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

I don't know...I know what you mean, but my typing speed is so much faster than my writing speed...it's eating my brain!