livejournal lurking
My habit of reading the friends pages of my friends has spiraled out of control. Now, I randomly click on friends of friends to read their friends pages, and as time allows, continue the trend.
I originally would read friends pages of my friends to catch up on the lives of people I didn't know well enough--people I knew, kind of, who would have to stop and think, either to remember who I am or to decide whether to add me as a friend back. In my world of sidestepping issues and being paranoid, I figured I'd save the other parties the time and just view from afar. (Of course, this has its disadvantages, especially when it comes to the realm of friends-only posts, but what can I do, really? What people have deemed personal enough to hide is evidently none of my business.)
Eventually this lead to reading the friends pages of communities I belonged to. Having done this for a math group I used to belong to, I realized that this was bordering on obsessive, so I left the community.
But, not satisfied with just the friends of friends (and, incidentally, being forced to skip over some of my friends' friends pages for reasons that don't particularly matter at this point), I took that next step, and now there was a whole new set of friends pages to peruse.
Incidentally, I'd like to point out that I've tried using livejournal's random feature, and it is horrible because it randomly chooses from everyone. Too bad it can't screen out the journals that are entirely friends-only or the journals written by tweens who think it's cool to have an livejournal. Even a "random yet grammatically correct most of the time" option would be nice.
But, upon joining another community, I had retreated back to viewing the members' posts outside the group. And some of these people are interesting. And so are their friends... and yeah.
At any rate, there's a group of people whose journals I check out, and they can't possibly know I'm there. Some of their entries are so profound, some I can relate to so well. Some cry out loneliness, and many of these never receive comments, and I want to comment and say, "someone's listening!" but that just reeks of creepiness. And yet, I want to let these people know that somehow, they're touching my life.
Logistically, it would make sense to tag them each as friends so that I don't have to lurk through journal after journal to read what my favorite writers have to say. This would also let them know that someone is listening. Is that too creepy? Too forward? Too pathetic?
But both of the above options lead me to admit that I've been lurking through journal entries.
On a similar note, I'm amazed to see what some people post to the world. Thoughts that may or may not have crossed my mind, but if they have, I certainly wouldn't have shared them with the world. Pictures of themselves and the places they frequent, which would be prime material for any delusional stalker looking for an easy target. Admissions of guilt, of fear, of weakness, of doubt, of self-loathing, of loneliness, all combined with random specifics like ex-girlfriends or boyfriends, jobs that cause too much stress, schools with classes that seem impossible. These people are so real, somehow. I feel like I need to surround myself with these open, and potentially understanding, people.
But I'm a coward, and paranoid that this livejournal thing has gone a little too far, and considering the fact that I probably need psychiatric help. Indeed, I'm surprised that I'm even writing this post. But I'm going to write it. And I'm going to post it. Because I can't be the only one. So, in honor of all those scouring livejournal for hope that there is intelligent life out there somewhere, this post is for you. Best wishes to you all.
I originally would read friends pages of my friends to catch up on the lives of people I didn't know well enough--people I knew, kind of, who would have to stop and think, either to remember who I am or to decide whether to add me as a friend back. In my world of sidestepping issues and being paranoid, I figured I'd save the other parties the time and just view from afar. (Of course, this has its disadvantages, especially when it comes to the realm of friends-only posts, but what can I do, really? What people have deemed personal enough to hide is evidently none of my business.)
Eventually this lead to reading the friends pages of communities I belonged to. Having done this for a math group I used to belong to, I realized that this was bordering on obsessive, so I left the community.
But, not satisfied with just the friends of friends (and, incidentally, being forced to skip over some of my friends' friends pages for reasons that don't particularly matter at this point), I took that next step, and now there was a whole new set of friends pages to peruse.
Incidentally, I'd like to point out that I've tried using livejournal's random feature, and it is horrible because it randomly chooses from everyone. Too bad it can't screen out the journals that are entirely friends-only or the journals written by tweens who think it's cool to have an livejournal. Even a "random yet grammatically correct most of the time" option would be nice.
But, upon joining another community, I had retreated back to viewing the members' posts outside the group. And some of these people are interesting. And so are their friends... and yeah.
At any rate, there's a group of people whose journals I check out, and they can't possibly know I'm there. Some of their entries are so profound, some I can relate to so well. Some cry out loneliness, and many of these never receive comments, and I want to comment and say, "someone's listening!" but that just reeks of creepiness. And yet, I want to let these people know that somehow, they're touching my life.
Logistically, it would make sense to tag them each as friends so that I don't have to lurk through journal after journal to read what my favorite writers have to say. This would also let them know that someone is listening. Is that too creepy? Too forward? Too pathetic?
But both of the above options lead me to admit that I've been lurking through journal entries.
On a similar note, I'm amazed to see what some people post to the world. Thoughts that may or may not have crossed my mind, but if they have, I certainly wouldn't have shared them with the world. Pictures of themselves and the places they frequent, which would be prime material for any delusional stalker looking for an easy target. Admissions of guilt, of fear, of weakness, of doubt, of self-loathing, of loneliness, all combined with random specifics like ex-girlfriends or boyfriends, jobs that cause too much stress, schools with classes that seem impossible. These people are so real, somehow. I feel like I need to surround myself with these open, and potentially understanding, people.
But I'm a coward, and paranoid that this livejournal thing has gone a little too far, and considering the fact that I probably need psychiatric help. Indeed, I'm surprised that I'm even writing this post. But I'm going to write it. And I'm going to post it. Because I can't be the only one. So, in honor of all those scouring livejournal for hope that there is intelligent life out there somewhere, this post is for you. Best wishes to you all.