netiquette, kind of

if you were starting to believe i wasn’t a brat, don’t read this [a post obviously written when I had, used, and lived via the medium of livejournal–back in the days of Friendster, before even MySpace, let alone Facebook…]:

it has recently come to my attention that a couple of people whom i was rather hoping to pass the rest of my days without ever encountering again have recently acquired livejournals. and i hate that.

now, before anybody jumps my shit about wanting to hog the cool-factor of lj and be in a private club and be all exclusionary, i recognize that as a legitimate implication of what i’ve said, and it’s regrettable. okay, i even regret it. i’m sorry that i wish for certain people not to be able to play in the sandbox. it’s rude. if they had their own sandboxes, i wouldn’t want to keep them out, but i don’t like them, and they don’t like me, and so i don’t want them in mine.

i don’t want them reading the things i write. and yes, i know, i can friends-only the things i really don’t want them to read. i’ve already done that. see? and yes, i know i could friends-only my entire journal, but i don’t want to. i like being able to tell other people to check out something i’ve written, or tell my mom where some poems are, without making them sign up for membership. i like the idea that people can randomly find me by interest-searches if they want to. i like sharing w/strangers just fine. i don’t want to share w/enemies. and yes, i know it’s bad to have enemies. believe me, i did not appoint them to the position. it was entirely a volunteer operation.

to be fair, i do, on occasion, myself, read the blog of someone who would really prefer i didn’t, if he/she knew about it. and that’s not entirely friendly of me, i suppose, especially if i’m going to be wishing people out of my sandbox. to my credit, however, it’s a joint blog, and i was invited to read it by the other owner/operator. moreover, it’s not really about personal reflection so much as it’s an account of the cute things the bloggers’ kids do plus some periodic rants about public schools and the government, so it’s not like i’m finding out anything intimate about the writer who’d rather i wasn’t a reader. and i never comment, because i’m not rude like that, and don’t want the person who wouldn’t want me there to have to think about me or be disgruntled about being read or whatever. this impulse to keep my mouth shut is not one i think i can count on from others, however, b/c i already have a problem with one person on lj with whom i share a regrettable acquaintance making comments i don’t appreciate in answer to things i say in the journal of a mutual friend. more of that shit i can so completely do without.

and that’s the biggest part (i’m really not a megalomaniac): i don’t want to read the things they write. and while i can choose not to read their journals (that’s not difficult), there’s nothing i can do about the fact that, since we share friends, i’m going to on occasion encounter things they’ve written in my friends’ journals. and sometimes i’m going to want to agree with them, or tell them that they’re full of shit, and i’m going to have to hold my tongue. sometimes they might even comment back to things i say, and then i’m going to have to behave really well. i don’t really mind the holding-my-tongue part, and i hope they’re content to hold their own when i say things to their friends they don’t agree with, but i do mind having to see their names in the first place, having to be reminded that they exist on a much more regular basis than i used to have to remember. i mind thinking about them. i mind having a space that was mine to share with people i liked sharing it with invaded by dark thoughts and feelings, by the ick of remembering things i didn’t need to think about, by the dim but not too dim, based on my past experience with these particular individuals, possibility that they’ll actually be civil and friendly and i’ll get dragged into yet another cycle of believing that maybe they’re not really shitheads and they kinda like me, until the next time they randomly flip the table over and send me hate-mail again. i didn’t want to go there again. i don’t want to go anywhere near them ever again. and that’s as true in my online life as it is in my “real” one.

the worst part is knowing that some of the people who might read this will have disregarded the warning at the beginning and will be all pissed at me now, for “not letting it go” or whatever. for daring to be injured and not forgiving, for being wary of being hurt again, for being defensive about this little pixelated sandbox that i’ve gotten all fond of and don’t want anybody piddling in. so if that’s you, and you think i’m a shit, i’m sorry. genuinely. because i care too much about what people think of me, and don’t want to be thought of that way. but i’m upset, and thinking out loud, and if i can’t think about these things in this forum without worrying about being dissed for it, the sandbox is already piddled-in and stinky-muddy.