Thoughts on publicness

[lnr]

I've seen quite a few people around the place who have all or nearly all of their entries for friends only. Personally I prefer to be public with a lot of what I say, but I have been a bit cautious about some things. Not being out about bi-ness or polyness to my parents I don't tend to talk about that in the public half of my diary at all, and that was actually a fairly concious decision. I don't know that they read it, but it's perfectly possible that they might.

I talked about it in comments on cryx's journal though since there was something I wanted to say on the subject, and that interested someone else (lovebugkisses) who not being on my friends list of course asked about it in a comment on one of my public posts. That's kind of made me think hard about just what I want to do about that sort of thing. I'm umming and ahhing between deleting that comment to make it hard to tell anything like that from the public view of my journal again, or just thinking sod it and being more open about the whole thing. For now I think I'll leave the comment there but continue to talk about such stuff privately instead.

If my parents were to find out by reading it here it wouldn't be the end of the world. It is something I'd *like* to be open about with them, in the long run, even if I don't find I can talk about it now, so in some ways it would just be an easy way of telling them. I guess I still think they'll disapprove and I don't like them feeling that way about me. I think at some point I am just going to have to tell them that that's the way it is and let them just get over it though. And no doubt I'll find out I'm being more paranoid than necessary and that they'd be fine with it really, but they've been pretty scathing of polyness in the past, and I just don't fancy trying to talk about it at the moment. Especially when it's still pretty new to me too in this form.

[No longer friends-only]

Comments

[angua.livejournal.com]

I expect your parents would be fine but when and how you tell them is up to you. I had a long chat with my folks when I got together with N and they were basically of the opinion that as long as I was happy and not getting hurt they were fine. I've spoken to them a reasonable amount since about various things (especially when it was going pear shaped) and they've always been supportive. I haven't brought a girlfriend home yet so I don't know how they'd react to that :)

As for things being public.. my basic rule of thumb is 'do I want any of my ex's or anyone that doesn't like me to read this' It means if it's something that could open me up to getting abuse or letting people know more about me than they should then I post it as friends only. I'm quite paranoid about this because of the stalker and whatnot. I dunno, it works for me mostly. I don't hold back in the stuff I write friends only though.

Anyway, that's my 2p.

[simonb.livejournal.com]

My basic rule of thumb when posting stuff is "Would I want anyone from ejde's or my families reading this" and I then set the protections on the entry as required.

Since neither ejde's or my families know about our open relationship or the fact that I'm bi anything relating to that goes in as a protected entry. Whilst my sister knows about my past (when I went through a couple of years when I dated men - she also thought that my taste in men (i.e. evil Chris) sucked) she did make the comment that she was very pleased to see me with ejde.

I guess the reason we haven't talked to either of our parents or siblings about this is thanks to them holding some relatively traditional values in certain areas. I don't think that they'd be very happy with us being in an open relationship or me being bi.

Naturally anything like my "TMI" posts get put under group protection for some strange reason :)

I never set posts as friends only these days though as I make heavy use of Friends groups and have a number defined:

Default View

What I see on my Friends page (http://www.livejournal.com/users/simonb/friends); not every journal on my Friends list is one that I want to read everyday.

Parties

People who see the party notices I put out; protected mainly since I put a link to the webpage which details where ChezBOFH physically is. Also due to the potential of people reading my journal who are persona non grata at ChezBOFH.

Full

Most protected entries go under this - fairly open

Private

More restricted version of the Full list; people on this list I trust more

Trust IRL

People who I have met in real life and who I trust

Food Diary

Not really used yet; FoodDiary will put stuff into this group as I doubt that people will want to see what I'm eating on a day-by-day basis :)

The only annoying thing about Friends groups is that there is no way within the web frontend to tell the difference between entries which are "Friends only" and entries which are protected by a Friends group. It could be useful for a note on who can view the entry to be placed there as well.... perhaps if I write my own LJ client at some point.... :)

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I have a similar attitude to one that you suggest. There's bound to be stuff that leaks out a bit if you look hard enough, somewhere like this, and I'd not put something I absolutely didn't want anyone to know on pain of something painful up here.

Most of my friends-only stuff is to keep out certain people who I think might be upset by knowing, rather than the world at large, mainly my family, sometimes work. But I think that if they're looking this hard, then they should expect to be burnt, I'm sure they know that as they've probably similar secrets, :).

I guess I'd be vaguely pleased if they found out accidentally, though these things are really complicated for me (as I guess they are for a lot of people), I wish it was nothing more than just saying I am abstract-noun, abstract-noun.

[littlemissgoth.livejournal.com]

Having atleast gotten to know your parents to a vague degree, I have to say I think they'd be ok with it... maybe one more than the other (and thats only a maybe... and deliberately semi-vague).

But as people have said, tis your choice as to when and how... and the 'just let them read it' approache could be double edged... (I'm assuming they'll be ok with it)... they either get upset cos you didn't feel you could just tell them, or they assume you felt it was absolutely a non-issue, that it's who you are, so you shouldn't *have* to tell anyone and are really proud of you for getting on with your life...

I *haven't* told my parents very much about any erm, whats the phrase(?), erm "ambiguities" in my life... in fact I don't think I could... and you'll probably figure the why behind that one quite quick...

jT