A story

[annwfyn]

Once, a long time ago, I did a favour for a friend. He was interested in a girl who had recently ended a relationship with a good friend of his, and he was trying to work out how much trouble he would get in if he asked her out. How soon was too soon? Her ex was pretty gutted. How big a betrayal of friendship was it? And would people think he had

Comments

[faerierhona]

The problem is, even if you try ad make it cryptic, it is still you writing posts about my life (well, if the post *is* about my life, obviously) and that makes me very cross if anyone does it. Even if it triggered a thought process for you, it still turns things that might be genuinely painful into a form of entertainment, and if I read it I might have friends effectively bitching about my actions without even knowing they are doing so

And so I think you are doing the right thing by not doing that, by waiting until it has passed and people can think it's about something else, because it can really really hurt when people do that, even unintentionally or when they actually didn't

[annwfyn]

As I have said, I am not posting this stuff up. I increasingly do that - I have a lot of private entries, or entries set to one or two people. And I write them because I like clarifying things in my head, whether it be the rights and wrongs of gossip, or my feelings about WW2 and why what happened to our grandparents still resonates or even just why certain things hit triggers for me.

And the longer I keep a journal the gladder I am that this stuff is recorded somewhere, as I have realized now how precious it is to have a good idea what the inside of my head looked like 5 years ago.

[faerierhona]

My comment may have come across funny, but I was applauding your decision not to post it, but just to write it privately/ leave it to later.

I do private posts sometimes, and have another place for such thoughts too. As you say, it gives us a look back on our thoughts at a time, and also is a useful way to explore our own thoughts, without hurting other people who may not be in any way involved

[suave_steve]

Yeah I find private posts useful for that, hell I end up writing one pretty much everyday.

[annwfyn]

Oh, sorry if I seemed defensive. I was kind of musing in response to it. I totally read it that way. I think I was coming across badly due to it being early morning. :)

And yes, private posts or limited posts are the way forward. I have another one coming up today on trying to work out the difference between a depressive fit and PMS. This is, it seems, trickier than one might imagine!

[annwfyn]

Randomly, it has occurred to me that the 'friends effectively bitching' is something that can come terribly easily out of those kind of posts, absolutely unintentionally, mostly because it is so easy to leave relevant context out of an LJ post, and context is often what matters.

[faerierhona]

And you may, of course, be leaving context out so that there *is* no bitching about what is actually happening

Bloody llamas