I’ve never been a very private person with close friends. I don’t really believe in secrets and my really close friends know practically everything there is to know about me. There are a few things I won’t say, usually because someone else asked me to keep that a private thing between us. I respect those sorts of secrets. There are a few things I find it hard to say, because they are deeply, deeply personal – often deeply held fantasies – and it involves a lot of trust to tell them, but my truly dearest friends – and you know who you are – have had that complete trust from me.
That said, I’ve been burned before with this Web space which is NOT the same as trustworthy private space in any way shape or form. I’ve had people in job interviews (where I’m the interviewer) start talking about bisexuality… and when I’ve enquired about why they feel this is relevant, they mention that they’ve done a Web search on me and read posts I’ve made on aus.culture.lesbigay. This was years and years ago, before I’d learned to be a little more circumspect about who knew that mordwen was me… And now if I’m going to post in some sorts of forums, I don’t use mordwen, I use new handles, because mordwen is a “compromised” handle now, if you like.
That’s one of the reasons I was so intent to keep this space for poetry (which I already published online) and academic theorising (which I felt was respectable, even if you worked out who I was).
I got a little more personal once I worked out how to use the friends-only features of the journal… but some of the more personal stuff is now in the open because two of the people I want to read it (two of my closest friends, Christina and Jonathan) don’t have LJs and won’t be able to read locked posts. So why don’t I just e‑mail them? Well, of course I do as well… and here’s where it gets complicated. It’s something to do with wanting to have the stuff *discussed* in the reply areas. If something interesting is said in the replies, I want them to be able to see that too. Of course, out of all the people I know, those two are the most likely to find this online diarising bizarre and a little embarrassing and are the least likely to share personal information themselves in the responses. That said, Christina’s letters home have been personal, witty, charming and thoughtful… but I haven’t been able to read all of your responses to them. In a way, I feel this format exposes the public nature of the missive.
Of course, I am still cautious about what I write here. I am aware that a number of my exes, (hawk_eye, pluces, raven_) read this journal and I don’t want to hurt them. I am still aware of certain issues of privacy with others. The delicacies of maintaining community.
How do you handle issues of privacy in your journal? Do you just write or are you hyper-aware of your audience? And if you don’t have a journal, is privacy one of the reasons?