It was bound to happen sooner or later...

[rivka]

...someone I care about discovered my LJ, found himself unflatteringly referenced in this post, and is now quite hurt and upset.



So now I'm not sure where to take this. I'm sorry he's feeling bad. I'm sorry I didn't warn him that I had posted when I was upset with him, but it was a month ago and I'd honestly forgotten.

I'm not sorry that I wrote it. I don't think it was unfair. And it was certainly an honest depiction of my feelings at the time. I'm not willing to promise that I won't write unflattering things about him, or about other people I know, in the future. I have no use for a journal that can only be used for the measured expression of tactful opinions. Since I read his e-mail, I've been saying to myself, Oh, great. Another place where I'm going to have to self-censor. I can't talk candidly about relationship problems in alt.poly, because two of my partners and one partner's wife read everything I post. alt.callahans is pretty much lost to me as a net.home for other reasons, but before it was the same basic problems applied.

I could've made the post friends-only. But then what would I do, not list him as a friend? Would I set access to a specific list of friends, excluding him? Ick. At the time I wrote the original post, I didn't have any friends listed. I wasn't even sure I was going to let anyone know I'd started a Live Journal. Maybe my first impulse was the best one.

He's out for the evening (I should be too, because it's English Country Dance night, but we had to take a houseguest to the airport), and I'm struggling to figure out what to say to him when he returns my call. At the moment, the best I can come up with - for him, for anyone who knows me, is:

"In most of my life I speak very carefully - I spend a lot of time searching for the fairest, most tactful, least emotionally escalating way to express my feelings about a problem. Or I may decide that there isn't a fair, tactful, calm way of saying something, and I might choose to let it go. I do have strong feelings and reactions, though, and sometimes I want to express them without worrying about doing it in the calmest possible way, the way least likely to cause hurt feelings or misinterpretation. This is my place to do that. That means that reading my Live Journal is probably going to be a mixed experience for you. I'm not going to encourage you to read it or stop reading it - but I'm not going to hold back from saying things that might hurt your feelings, either."

I don't know. *sigh* Is that too harsh? How do y'all handle talking about other people who might be - or definitely are - reading your LJ? How much do you self-censor? Do you ever tell someone not to read? How would you want your partners and friends to handle talking about you in a semi-public journal?

Comments

No

[curmudgn]

I don’t think it’d be too harsh to say to him that this is your journal, where you put down your thoughts and feelings, and sometimes those thoughts and feelings aren’t going to be all warm and fuzzy and complimentary to the entire world.  And if he has a scrap of psychic honesty to him, he’ll understand that.  He may not like it at all, but he sure needs to have enough integrity to allow that your feelings are just as valid as anyone’s, and that you’re allowed to express them.  If he’s made uncomfortable by discovering that sometimes you get mad about things he’s done—well, he’s got two choices.  He can start figuring out how to do something positive about his actions so he doesn’t engender that kind of response from you, or he can do like the old vaudeville joke:

A man walks into a doctor’s office and says, “Doctor, my arm hurts in two places,”to which the doctor replies, “Well then, don’t go in those places!”

I think it would be a great mistake if you began to censor your entries only because somebody somewhere might possibly be offended by something you say at some indefinite time.  Self-censorship may be needed at some times, but it should be imposed on you only by your own conscience, and not by fear of some outside influence.

Grrr. Arrgghh.

[ororo.livejournal.com]

*HUGS* first off.

Second, I agree with the entire Fragile Flower post. I tend to get more angry and lash out, which seems to indicate to people that I don't need help. It sucks.

While I think I can infer from context who the persons were, I'm just not going to Go There at all.

My default LJ security is Friends. Once someone is on my Friends list, I feel it's only fair to keep any ugliness out of my posts. I had this work in a very positive way for me in one case a while back. I was hurting over something in the past, but since I didn't want to post about an old hurt/grudge, I decided to clear the air with this person, and we're closer than ever.

It doesn't always work that way. Another friend posted something that triggered my TMI alarm and I asked to be taken of that person's Friends list.

So, I watch myself quite a bit. I found myself doing it a bit too much and wrote a rather large reminder of "This is my journal dammit." Ironcially, my therapist of a couple years ago reccommended I not keep a journal because I sought approval so intensely that I'd censor myself.

Unless something has me extremely upset, I don't talk about my newsgroups or IRC channels in LJ. II also don't talk about LJ in other semi-public forums (fora?).

I just reread this and realized I don't have any advice or suggestions. It's really hard to tell anyone, "I can't share this with you," when you're obviously sharing it with others. *HUGS* I wish you lots of luck and hope my perspective might be of some use to you.

See you Friday. :)

[rosefox]

How do y'all handle talking about other people who might be - or definitely are - reading your LJ? How much do you self-censor? Do you ever tell someone not to read? How would you want your partners and friends to handle talking about you in a semi-public journal?

I think these are questions anyone with an LJ has to answer. My mother reads my journal; my sweeties read my journal; random strangers read my journal. It's hard to figure out how honest to be.

The way I've worked it out is to post about things that have me upset while I'm upset, and mark them private. Then once I've vented and I'm feeling calmer, I talk with the people in question, work it out, append the details of the situation's resolution, and make the post public. If it's a very thorny issue, I send the post to anyone else involved for review, to make sure that they don't feel that the post reopens the wounds instead of helping to heal them.

That's the theory, anyway. *) I don't always realize when something might bother someone (I recently referred to being happy about email from a friend; one of his SOs, who reads my journal, asked him if that meant he and I were opening relationship negotiations!). But people are aware that I try, so they cut me some slack, and at the same time, tell me if they think I've crossed the line. I know other people who use a similar system, so it seems to work pretty well. Another person has a "public" journal and a "private" journal, though with filtering added as an option for specific subsets of one's friends group, she may have switched to doing that instead.

I don't tell people not to read, and I don't make friends-only posts at all. Either it's my-eyes-only, or it's public.

As for how people talk about me... I honestly don't care as long as I feel I'm being represented accurately. "Rose did this" isn't a problem for me, as long as I actually did. I don't take journal posts as conversation-starters, though; if someone wants to discuss a problem with me, sie can bring it up with me one-on-one, and similarly, I may post about something to vent but I don't expect other people--even ones I know read my journal--to feel that that puts the ball in their court.

It's hard to balance, but for the most part it works out. I hope you can find a balance that works for you.

[firecat]

Is that too harsh?
No.

How do y'all handle talking about other people who might be - or definitely are - reading your LJ?
I don't say anything particularly unflattering on my public LJ. I save that for my private journal and for individual friends or online venues where I know the person isn't reading.

I have an anonymized LJ account that is intended for stuff that I don't want associated with my public persona but I've mostly stopped using that in favor of writing it in an entirely private journal.

Do you ever tell someone not to read?
No.

How would you want your partners and friends to handle talking about you in a semi-public journal?
Mainly I would hope that any problem they vented about was something I already knew about. I think it would be unpleasant to find out from a journal that someone had a problem with me, but if I knew already they had a problem, I don't think I'd mind their saying something about it.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

How do y'all handle talking about other people who might be - or definitely are - reading your LJ? How much do you self-censor? Do you ever tell someone not to read? How would you want your partners and friends to handle talking about you in a semi-public journal?

I do self-censor public and friends-only posts. If that becomes uncomfortable, I make a private post instead. My general rule is that I don't vent about someone in a public forum unless I've discussed the problem with them first, because I don't think it's fair to them to find out about it that way. If I need advice about a problem with a partner, I will either make sure they know about the problem first, or use a forum they're unlikely to read. I think a separate friends list would be a good way of achieving that. And even if they're not going to read it, I will try very hard to be fair to them so that they don't get an undeserved bad reputation.

I don't tell people not to read, but there are some topics I know some of my partners would rather avoid (such as BDSM), so I use the cut tag to give them the choice of how much to read.

I'd prefer my friends and partners to deal with comments about me in the same way.

LJ and friends list

[bunyip.livejournal.com]

I don't know. *sigh* Is that too harsh? How do y'all handle talking about other people who might be - or definitely are - reading your LJ? How much do you self-censor? Do you ever tell someone not to read? How would you want your partners and friends to handle talking about you in a semi-public journal?

You're not being harsh at all, you're being very reasonable about it. This is your journal, and hence your own place to express your thoughts and feelings on anything you wish. I deliberately have my journal tied down to be friends only at all times, and at other times, I change it so that I can post to a subset of my friends using the live journal client. I don't self-censor as I consider my journal and comments to be my own, but there hasn't been anything I have said I have regretted. There has been times I've wished to have been able to make a point more clearly than I have, but the point is I needed to write at that time and get it out of my system.

There have been sometimes when someone has wished to have been on my friends list, and I have refused to add them in. On the other hand, there are two people on my friends list because I was asked if I could add them in after their partner found something I wrote on Memorial Day to be very insightful and wished for those people to read. I'd like them to talk about me in their journal freely, and be willing to talk about anything they wrote with me if I had problems with it.

Re: No

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Whoa, wait, let me clarify: he didn't ask me not to write things that might hurt his feelings, and I don't think he would ask me. He's got plenty of integrity, he was just sad and freaked out to come upon an unexpected burst of anger. I think his reaction makes perfect sense and doesn't reflect poorly on him - I'm just trying to figure out how much it should guide my future posting behavior.

Right now I'm leaning towards the combined use of (a) the lj-cut tag, to ensure that things aren't read by accident, and (b) if I've vented about an issue with someone, a heads-up to that person before they see it, so they can choose to avoid it.

I wrote that post when I was never intending for anyone to see my journal. Now I'm struggling a bit with not wanting to make my journal too audience-directed. But I'll find middle ground somewhere. (Probably in the middle, ya think?.)

[jenett]

How do I handle talking about other people?

Mostly, I try not to say anything I haven't already said to their face, if I'm saying something moderately personal and that they might take as a negative comment. (I generally tell them I think they're wonderful people anyway, so it's not a problem there either.)

I try to anonymise as much as possible. A couple of times, I've talked about third parties as a need to vent about stuff. When that's been someone who might by any chance read LJ and know it's me, I've made it friends only, in the sense of "I'm not saying anything here I won't say publically, but I'm trying to figure out how I feel and what I want to say in the first place."

How much do I self-censor?

Not a whole lot. There's some private internal personal stuff that I don't tell anyone - but that stuff doesn't go in the LJ anyway. It goes in a private journal or stays in my head.

I do try not to unreasonably bash people. I think it's fine for me to express irritation or frustration, but it's not ok for me to be nasty about it, or out of proportion, and I need to make it clear that it's *my* frustrations going on, not something else.

But again, I try to keep to a "If this is something I should be telling the other person, I need to tell them before I post it" rule. Not all of my frustrations meet that rule, though.

Sometimes (like a frustration with someone I know only online and don't consider a friend, just a casual online acquaintance) I don't think I need to say "You're being a jerk" to them before posting it. Just people I'm closer to, where there's a reasonable chance they'd consider acting on that information if they knew it.

How would I want my partners/friends to deal with talking about me?

Same deal. If it's something they've got a problem with, I'd want them to tell me before posting something publically, even if the telling me was "I don't know how to say this, but can you go read

and then come back and talk to me." (That's not my ideal, but I can cope with that if that's what it takes.)

I wouldn't really like to come across it later, but I could deal, if it was something that it was clear that the other person didn't mean me to change, just wanted to vent about, or found puzzling or something.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

so just last night I was discussing almost exactly this with pixel. and I get up this morning and pixel reads LJ and says "heh, this is what you were talking about last night". specifically the thing about making a friends-group that doesn't include a specific friend I want to whine about. I don't feel right doing this. since even though I would try to anonymize them to the point where most people wouldn't know who I was talking about it would still feel like talking about them behind their back. even though I already whined about the specific case that happened this weekend to pixel in person (with name attached) and will probably do so to more of my friends (without name attached only because the rest of them don't know this person in realspace).

I recently went back and made about half my post friends-only because a friend-of-a-friend was reading my journal and getting wrong or confused ideas from it. With a friends-only post I can say "ok, I know what subset of people is reading this, I am cool with all of those people seeing this." and I ONLY add as friends people I have met in realspace. With a public post I say "I don't care if anyone, even my parents and sister read this". Previous to my recent cleansing I had been vaguely nervous that my sister might accidentially find my journal and she really doesn't want/need to hear all the details about sex and relationships that I post (that's all friends-only now).

I try not to give people great revalations about what I think of them via livejournal. I screwed up once, a long time ago. Oops. Lost a "friend" but, ok, I'm not all that upset since I didn't like him all that much anyway. I still feel bad though. Just last night I did whine about one friend, it may have been inappropriate, she recognized herself and sent a comment apology. I dunno, I'm a very public person, I'm not really shy about telling pretty much anyone anything about me and sometimes I worry that I go too far (give people too much ammunition to hurt me with) but truth is an addiction I don't know how to cure... I am torn between saying "if you want to have your life intersect with mine you'll have to accept that intersection being publicized" and "damn, I should be considerate of what my friends want or I will drive them all away."

Livejournal is such a fucking FASCINATING social and psychological study...

oh, that was probably totally unuseful blathering. sorry.

[greyman.livejournal.com]

Very tough to figure... I have plenty to say about a few people I *know* are on LJ and read my journal, one being my lovely wife.

My main concern is that I might attack unfairly from the protection of my LJ. So, I try to either not cover an issue at all, or cover it after broaching it with her.

The only people I've talked about in-the-clear whom I might worry about are my parents, my ex-SO, and my ex-boss. I'm pretty safe on the last two but my mother has been here to read at least one of my posts. Oh well. I didn't write that stuff as an end-run around confrontation, so I don't think about it much.

It *is* your journal, not a public discussion forum. You shouldn't have to self-censor as much.

Not sure what's best....

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Really, this kind of situation depends on your own choices to a large degree. You see, what essentially happened was you talked about this person too loudly, and he overheard through no fault of his own.

Now, some people do, and some people don't, realize that they aren't talked about the same behind their back, and it's perfectly natural. It's even relatively honest. For example, I don't tell Angaar, the seven foot tall celery stalk who walked like a man, that I'm really upset about the time he attacked me with a sledgehammer. It was all a misunderstanding, after all. However, I do sometimes call up Mr. Potatohead, and grouse about how shortsighted celery stalks can be. (Potatos are never short sighted. (Obvious pun deleted at the request of the EPA))

It's not that I HATE Angaar, it's just that I *DO* need to blow off some steam about it. By talking about it, I can let it go more easily. It actually strengthens our friendship. However, Angaar might be upset to know that I'm carrying around what could be seen as a grudge.

Now, if someone overhears something I'm saying about them, the two things I try to do are

1) be brutally honest, or at least as much as I can be. Try to make it clear I'm not holding anything back right now. The point here, obviously, it to get the person to the "okay, that really is *EVERYTHING*.

and,

2) reaffirm my positive feelings, and why these negative feelings are *NOT* major deals. (If they are major deals, of course, this is now officially Really Ugly, and I'm not touching it.)

So, basically, "Yes, Angaar, I know you didn't mean to attack me with that sledgehammer, but, listen, you have to understand that kind of thing is scary! I haven't been able to look at a tuna fish sandwich for over a year for fear that there was celery in the tuna salad. I really *DO* understand it was an accident, and that's why I talk about it away from you. I don't want to hit you with guilt over it... but I do still need to talk about it. And don't ever forget that I respect the way you use your powers for the good of all mankind, as well as the protection of all sentient celery."

Now, as for what you do about the future, I don't know. You are talking 'out loud', and someone could 'overhear', so there's some duty to speak quietly about people when they might be listening, but there's also some duty for people not to specifically eavesdrop.

Maybe a set of 'keywords' at the top of the post, "speaks about: Angaar, Mr. Potatohead", and a person understands that, if they read about that, they are asking for your private thoughts which might not be to their liking.

But making the post "friends only - except(whomever)" or "private" is what a person normally does when talking about someone else... they try to make sure the other person can't hear. You might, however, want to make sure that the person *CAN* see that journal entry if they specfically ask you about it. Knowing exactly what was said can be better than knowing that "something less-than-perfectly-kind" was posted. (Of course, I'd also make it one way or the other... either always provide a copy, or never do.)

So far, I haven't done any self-censoring. I'm not sure if I should or shouldn't. But, so far I haven't really said much about other people that's not public knowledge already.

I hope it works out.

Re: Not sure what's best....

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It's not that I HATE Angaar, it's just that I *DO* need to blow off some steam about it. By talking about it, I can let it go more easily.

*nod* Really, I think this kind of thing is most likely to come up for me in situations in which I am blowing off steam - because the issue isn't important enough to be worth causing a rift over, or because it's something that's not really appropriate to confront the person about.

In this particular incident, I was upset with the way that one friend treated another. I made initial efforts to help them see each other's point of view, but when that didn't work I really believed that I should back off and leave them to work it out between them. There's just a limit to how appropriate I think it is to police a friend's behavior.

Several people have pointed out that they wouldn't want to find out that a problem existed by reading about it in a journal. I agree that if I have an issue with a partner or friend, I ought to discuss it with them in person. But there are two possible situations in which I might not do that:

1) The issue isn't important enough to address between us - I just need to blow off steam about it, and then things will be fine. Or alternatively, I know that I'm being unfair or irrational or selfish in my frustration, and it would be inappropriate to task the other person with my reactions - given that I expect those reactions to pass.

2) It's not going to do any good to try to address the issue. This one, I admit, is a tricky judgment call. But for example: I have issues with the other primary of one of my partners. My partner knows that we don't get along, and that I'm frustrated by some of the ways she has an impact on our relationship. But their relationship is not going to change. It's not going to do any good for me to let him know about each additional instance of me being frustrated - it's just going to stress us both out.

So in those situations, I might vent here instead of having it out with the person in question. In which case, I've decided to (a) use the lj-cut tag to necessitate deliberate effort if one is going to read the post, and (b) a heads-up to the person involved, letting them know they've been vented about but also making it clear that I don't expect them to read or respond.

I made the problematic post when I was thinking about this journal as a private venue. When other people started reading it, I failed to think over all the things I'd posted before and the potential consequences of having them read. That was a mistake, and it hurt someone I care about. Although I'm not sorry for having written the post, I'm sorry for the circumstances under which it was discovered.

Re: Not sure what's best....

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

1) The issue isn't important enough to address between us - I just need to blow off steam about it, and then things will be fine. Or alternatively, I know that I'm being unfair or irrational or selfish in my frustration, and it would be inappropriate to task the other person with my reactions - given that I expect those reactions to pass.

2) It's not going to do any good to try to address the issue. This one, I admit, is a tricky judgment call. But for example: I have issues with the other primary of one of my partners. My partner knows that we don't get along, and that I'm frustrated by some of the ways she has an impact on our relationship. But their relationship is not going to change. It's not going to do any good for me to let him know about each additional instance of me being frustrated - it's just going to stress us both out.

Datapoint: In both those situations, if I'm the person that someone is frustrated by, I *very very much* want to know about it, regardless of whether or not they're going to vent about it on LJ or anywhere else. Those are exactly the sorts of situations where I find *not* knowing makes things worse, because I'm liable to say something that sounds insensitive because I think everything's hunkydory when actually it isn't. And sometimes I also have an intuition that something's not quite right, but because no-one's told me, I get paranoid that either I'm imagining it and being horribly insecure, or that I've done something that seems so terrible to the other person that they can't talk to me about it.

If it's not something that needs to be fixed or that can be fixed, better to tell me that than not to tell me about the frustration at all.

I don't need to know about every single incident, but I feel a need to know that the frustration exists, and to be told if it escalates.