start as I intend to continue
Mar. 9th, 2004 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevEvery time I start writing on another internet forum I ask myself the same questions about privacy. And I've never really come up with answers that have really satisfied me.
Once upon a time, when I first encountered usenet in early '92, the 'net seemed quite tiny and mostly nobody I knew used it, except for a handful of people I met there. I talked freely about my life, though even then I was unwilling to name names. As my circle of wired friends grew, I picked up more habits of obfuscation, like using gender-neutral pronouns, referring to people in my life with initials that had no actual relation to their names, and plain just not talking about some things (especially after someone blew up at me for making an oblique reference that nobody would have known was about her, had she not blown up at me on a public forum). The most innocent comments started causing drama. Apparently, at least for the people in my life then, the things they said about themselves weren't things it was okay for me to say about them, even to the same audience.
So, I developed the habit of talking in specifics only about myself. This continued for a couple of years; there's a bunch of text on my web page collected up 'till '95 or so, when I was posting on usenet and on the web (and nattering on in various irc channels) and talking freely about myself, my beliefs, and my life in general. A lot of that stuff is outdated, but I've avoided taking it down because I don't have anything to replace it with, and I'm a more private person these days and updating the content involves talking more about myself than I'm comfortable with in what feels to me like a very public forum.
Some of that discomfort started in early 1996. I was a year or so out of a really painful, frustrating, agonizing breakup. I was a few months into my first serious relationship after that breakup, and that wasn't going too well, either. As I did often during that period in my life, I turned to writing bad poetry. At one point, I got email from the previous boyfriend, assuming one of the poems I'd posted on my website was about him. I was quite indignant. As that faded, it was replaced with a growing consciousness that my 'net presence and my real life were inextricably entangled, and that unless I was willing to go create myself a whole new persona not linked to any of my known history, I was going to have to avoid putting anything on the 'net that I wasn't willing to recite in a crowded room.
In 1998, I started an online journal of sorts. I called it 'writing in the rain', because I'd recently moved to Seattle. After the first few diary-like posts, I retreated to using it as a testbed for essays I thought I'd like to eventually write, and an archive of usenet posts I'd written that I wanted to showcase a little. After awhile, weblogs started springing up all over the net, and I watched people writing much more intimately about their lives than I was doing. I noted in 2001 that what freaked me out was not that strangers would read it, but that people I knew could see it.
2001 was a weird period of my life. I recently cataloged a bunch of old negatives, and discovered that many of the times I shot film and then never showed it to anyone was in 2001. I was hiding behind my camera in every social situation, and then not brave enough to show anybody the results. I was working way too hard -- long days, long weeks. Several of my close friends were drifting away, for various reasons, some of them not under my control. My sex drive went completely kaput. I was getting less and less comfortable spending time around my larger group of acquaintances. I started referring to that group as "the mob" instead of "my friends", because I only ever saw them in group contexts, where my least favorite mob mentality was holding sway: the one where people stop looking out for each other, because everybody figures somebody else will take care of it, and because with that many people there's too many variables to keep track of.
By the end of the year I was a basket case. I started another online journal, this one intended explicitly to talk about what was going on in my life, in hopes of keeping people updated when I didn't actually feel like talking to anybody. I knew my friendships were suffering from lack of maintenance and had hoped this would help.
It didn't. I discovered that as much of a hermit as I was, my life still consisted of a lot of interactions with people, and I was pretty nervous about violating their privacy. So that weblog turned into mostly a cooking journal, with bits of political rant and useful bits of information I ran into that I though I'd like to share. Still not anything even vaguely like an online diary.
Words are a big part of how I work through puzzles. If I'm playing a game, I tend to talk my strategy out loud. If I'm agonizing over a decision, I write about it. It works better if I've got feedback from people to push against, but I can get by without that if I'm willing to set aside what I've written for a few days and come back to it with a fresh mind. So I've got a much more private set of writings, that few people see. But I still like the idea of something in between -- some online version of the intimate little gatherings I've discovered I like so much.
I run some mailing lists that used to be that way, when they were much smaller. I regularly threaten to start a mailing list like that; it would have a dozen or so people, and it would be where I could turn for support as well as just a way of keeping my friendships fresh. But I suspect that it would be difficult to convince those friends to redirect any energy away from the larger, more exciting online pursuits that are already taking up their time, and I don't want to expose myself to the potential disappointment.
But some of my friends *do* use their livejournals that way. I think the sheer volume of journals out there makes these spaces feel less public; people don't go read strangers' livejournals. (okay, I do. But not often.) I understand, now, the pressure I see people putting on their friends to get an lj account.
Of the people I consider my closest friends, most of 'em don't have livejournal accounts. I'm not willing to push them to try using lj, especially since I don't know how reliable I'll be about updating this. In the last year or so, I've given up trying specifically to keep my friendships alive electronically; if that happens, it's good, but I've mostly stopped being disappointed when it doesn't. Nowadays my strategy is to actually try to spend one-on-one time with people. Not everybody's willing to do that for me, but my friendships have really been thriving with the ones who have. And I'm slowly evolving different strategies for people who're too busy or otherwise disinclined to spend time just sitting and talking with me.
I created this account because people keep having livejournals I want to read, and it's more convenient for me if I can read 'em all in the same place. And maybe I'll manage to end up closer to those of you that are here. In the end, that's what this thing is for, right?
Once upon a time, when I first encountered usenet in early '92, the 'net seemed quite tiny and mostly nobody I knew used it, except for a handful of people I met there. I talked freely about my life, though even then I was unwilling to name names. As my circle of wired friends grew, I picked up more habits of obfuscation, like using gender-neutral pronouns, referring to people in my life with initials that had no actual relation to their names, and plain just not talking about some things (especially after someone blew up at me for making an oblique reference that nobody would have known was about her, had she not blown up at me on a public forum). The most innocent comments started causing drama. Apparently, at least for the people in my life then, the things they said about themselves weren't things it was okay for me to say about them, even to the same audience.
So, I developed the habit of talking in specifics only about myself. This continued for a couple of years; there's a bunch of text on my web page collected up 'till '95 or so, when I was posting on usenet and on the web (and nattering on in various irc channels) and talking freely about myself, my beliefs, and my life in general. A lot of that stuff is outdated, but I've avoided taking it down because I don't have anything to replace it with, and I'm a more private person these days and updating the content involves talking more about myself than I'm comfortable with in what feels to me like a very public forum.
Some of that discomfort started in early 1996. I was a year or so out of a really painful, frustrating, agonizing breakup. I was a few months into my first serious relationship after that breakup, and that wasn't going too well, either. As I did often during that period in my life, I turned to writing bad poetry. At one point, I got email from the previous boyfriend, assuming one of the poems I'd posted on my website was about him. I was quite indignant. As that faded, it was replaced with a growing consciousness that my 'net presence and my real life were inextricably entangled, and that unless I was willing to go create myself a whole new persona not linked to any of my known history, I was going to have to avoid putting anything on the 'net that I wasn't willing to recite in a crowded room.
In 1998, I started an online journal of sorts. I called it 'writing in the rain', because I'd recently moved to Seattle. After the first few diary-like posts, I retreated to using it as a testbed for essays I thought I'd like to eventually write, and an archive of usenet posts I'd written that I wanted to showcase a little. After awhile, weblogs started springing up all over the net, and I watched people writing much more intimately about their lives than I was doing. I noted in 2001 that what freaked me out was not that strangers would read it, but that people I knew could see it.
2001 was a weird period of my life. I recently cataloged a bunch of old negatives, and discovered that many of the times I shot film and then never showed it to anyone was in 2001. I was hiding behind my camera in every social situation, and then not brave enough to show anybody the results. I was working way too hard -- long days, long weeks. Several of my close friends were drifting away, for various reasons, some of them not under my control. My sex drive went completely kaput. I was getting less and less comfortable spending time around my larger group of acquaintances. I started referring to that group as "the mob" instead of "my friends", because I only ever saw them in group contexts, where my least favorite mob mentality was holding sway: the one where people stop looking out for each other, because everybody figures somebody else will take care of it, and because with that many people there's too many variables to keep track of.
By the end of the year I was a basket case. I started another online journal, this one intended explicitly to talk about what was going on in my life, in hopes of keeping people updated when I didn't actually feel like talking to anybody. I knew my friendships were suffering from lack of maintenance and had hoped this would help.
It didn't. I discovered that as much of a hermit as I was, my life still consisted of a lot of interactions with people, and I was pretty nervous about violating their privacy. So that weblog turned into mostly a cooking journal, with bits of political rant and useful bits of information I ran into that I though I'd like to share. Still not anything even vaguely like an online diary.
Words are a big part of how I work through puzzles. If I'm playing a game, I tend to talk my strategy out loud. If I'm agonizing over a decision, I write about it. It works better if I've got feedback from people to push against, but I can get by without that if I'm willing to set aside what I've written for a few days and come back to it with a fresh mind. So I've got a much more private set of writings, that few people see. But I still like the idea of something in between -- some online version of the intimate little gatherings I've discovered I like so much.
I run some mailing lists that used to be that way, when they were much smaller. I regularly threaten to start a mailing list like that; it would have a dozen or so people, and it would be where I could turn for support as well as just a way of keeping my friendships fresh. But I suspect that it would be difficult to convince those friends to redirect any energy away from the larger, more exciting online pursuits that are already taking up their time, and I don't want to expose myself to the potential disappointment.
But some of my friends *do* use their livejournals that way. I think the sheer volume of journals out there makes these spaces feel less public; people don't go read strangers' livejournals. (okay, I do. But not often.) I understand, now, the pressure I see people putting on their friends to get an lj account.
Of the people I consider my closest friends, most of 'em don't have livejournal accounts. I'm not willing to push them to try using lj, especially since I don't know how reliable I'll be about updating this. In the last year or so, I've given up trying specifically to keep my friendships alive electronically; if that happens, it's good, but I've mostly stopped being disappointed when it doesn't. Nowadays my strategy is to actually try to spend one-on-one time with people. Not everybody's willing to do that for me, but my friendships have really been thriving with the ones who have. And I'm slowly evolving different strategies for people who're too busy or otherwise disinclined to spend time just sitting and talking with me.
I created this account because people keep having livejournals I want to read, and it's more convenient for me if I can read 'em all in the same place. And maybe I'll manage to end up closer to those of you that are here. In the end, that's what this thing is for, right?
