I'm confused

[maderr]

I was cruising around for new story comms (if you can rec any, I'll love you forever) and what I noticed instead were a lot of ljs with something remarkably odd in common, a variation of the following statement:

"If you want to read my journal then friend me and I'll friend you back if I think you're interesting. I'm not really comfortable with everyone reading my words and thoughts, that's why this is friend's only."

Now, I know plenty of good reason to restrict an lj - but the above doesn't strike me as one of them. I thought the whole point of an lj was to be rather public with your thoughts? If you don't want strangers reading what you're thinking/feeling, shouldn't you just not post it? I gaurentee there are plenty of things I leave unsaid b/c I don't want them on stage, so to speak. Otherwise I find the whole thing rather soothing - I do better when I can blather and vent (and I'm probably something of an attention whore, but imho everyone with an lj likes attention to some degree).

Okay, I'm going to bed now. That just always irks me, perhaps because while they're writing "I don't want everyone to see this" they're really thinking LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME!!

/randomness

Comments

[maisieuphong.livejournal.com]

mm, I guess livejournal was made to be a public viewing kind of thing, but it's also turned into a lot of uses. Some people use it as a personal diary and don't want people in real life to read it and whatnot. It's the same as making friend's only post. I do it 'cause I don't want my co-workers reading some fangirlish things ^^;; Sometimes I censor my posts because I upload music and videos for my friends to watch and I can't have the entire population using the internet leeching from me ^^;; Other times, there are specific people I don't want reading it, so I make the post friend's only. Worse than having to censor the entry is not being able to write it at all.

I have another livejournal that's friend's only and I use it as a notebook or sorts and I drabble here and there, writting fics and stuff while I'm at work. Nothing I'm prepared to show to the public yet. Lj's make great, realiable, storage space ^^;

Though, I've also seen people forced to go Friend's Only because of flamers constantly stalk their journal and other bad stuff =\

[maderr.livejournal.com]

All those reasons make sense - it's the immediate declaratio of "I don't feel comfortable doing this" that bugs me. But you are right that it's expanded beyond the initial public journal thing. It's just if you're going to keep it private, why make a big production of saying so? Seems a conflict of sorts to me - but I'm debating idiotic things, I know. I think it's beyond me, I'm probably too public for my own good at times.

[starparty.livejournal.com]

Well my regular journal I don't give a flying fooey who reads it. But my writing journal is a little different... I'm not really sure why but it's more not personal exactly but I guess criticizim I get there is going to affect me a lot more than my regular rambles. So I like to know just WHO I'm opening up to. Getting myself to focus and actually WRITE takes so much effort sometimes that what comes out may be total crap but I worked hard to wrench that crap out of my head and an offhanded taunt is going to mean a hell of a lot more than it was meant simply because it was so much work. So I didn't really tell people about it and when it became known I panicked and locked it down. *shrug* It's odd I know but I'm really touchy about anything I write.