On livejournal and how I use it...

[annwfyn]

I'm pondering tonight, as I often do. Tonight, in a slightly navel gazing kind of way, I am pondering livejournal.

I am pondering what I use it for. I am pondering why I add people to my friends list, how I filter it as I do, and what my friends list means to me.

This was brought on, as these rambles always are with me, by a couple of people de-friending me. One offered a general purpose explanation that he was just cutting people off his flist that he didn't really talk to anymore, either on LJ or in real life. The other didn't say anything, but she's not someone I know very well, honestly, although she is the fiancee of someone I am quite fond of, and I'm vaguely hoping that this isn't a sign of me watching him drift out of my life entirely as well.

(I was, by the way, quite mellow for me. I had no particular sulk or pout about either of these 'de-friendings' which I am sure many of you will be surprised to hear)

Anyway. And it got me thinking.

It got me thinking about why I automatically de-friended both people immediately, without even really considering the matter. The obvious answer is that I tend to be mildly lacking in trust in people at the best of times, and I do use my livejournal to whitter about quite a lot of personal corners of my life. I don't think I'm at all comfortable with someone reading about my life, my thoughts, my feelings, if they don't really want to give me any contact with them in return. I suppose, on some level, my friending someone is saying 'if you want to know what I'm thinking or feeling, then that's cool with me'. This isn't a political blog, or a witty blog, or the very low budget internet equivalent of a newspaper column. It is a personal livejournal, and in places it is a cross between a diary and a personal e mail to a bunch of friends.

If someone doesn't want that kind of connection with me - well - I'd rather not keep reaching out.

There have, it must be said, be people that I've friended without reciprocation. The last person I did that with was huggy_pixie, who is someone who was and is very important to me in real life, and I wanted her to know (whenever she got round to checking her LJ profile) that I was always going to have this corner of my life open to her, whenever she wanted.

So, non-reciprocal friending seems to be something that mostly has an odd emotional significance to me.

I also wondered why it was that I largely don't do friends list culls. I've done one once, felt really guilty, and added most people back the next day. I don't think I'll do one again.

First of all, why do I keep people on my LJ who I haven't spoken to in ages? I suppose because I want to keep the door open. The vast majority of people on my LJ are people that I have met in person, and they are people who have made an impact on me in one way or another. They are people I've enjoyed talking to, they are people I share specific memories with, they are people who knew a Sally that others have long forgotten. I don't want to turn my back on that, and I want to know that if the world changes, and we do find ourselves in the same place again (be that the same city, the same country, or even the same role playing society) then they'll know how to find me, I'll know how to find them, and we can maybe re-connect.

Secondly, why do I keep people on my flist who I have never met and maybe don't know that well. Well, mostly because they've said something interesting, because they've asked, or sometimes just because they have seemed to want to connect with me. By and large I'm not big with the rejection, and if someone is enjoying reading what I have to write, then why tell them they can't read it anymore?

But having said all that, why are there people out there who have friended me that I've not friended back yet?

Erm. A variety of reasons. First of all, I normally don't friend anyone that I:

a) don't know
b) has never introduced themself
c) am unsure about where the hell they found my LJ from

There are a couple of other folks out there who have my friended that I've not friended back. Those are people that I am a little bit unsure about, for one reason or another, and am a little bit nervous about giving them that personal access to me. By and large tho, most of the people I've not friended are just people I don't really know at all.

I could, of course, be a complete moron and have missed some really obvious people. Erm. If that's the case I hope they'd tell me.

And finally, why is this 'friending' thing a big deal anyway?

I suppose it's a combination that horribly loaded term of 'friends', and the way I write in my livejournal.

I do write about personal things. I do share quite a bit of my insanities, my vulnerabilities, my worries, and my hopes in my livejournal. I used to put a lot more of that on public display, but now I don't. And so for me, livejournal is a personal kind of contact. It is something which has some kind of low level emotional significance to me. Not as much as it used to (which is for the best), but it seems to still be there.

Hmmmm...odd thoughts. Silly thoughts.

In other news, I'm off to see 300 tonight. Some mean people have said it may not be historically accurate. I, however, care not for historical accuracy tonight. I care for a film about the myth that I suspect Leonides would have preferred. Then this weekend is Zeitgeist Mummy/Sabbat/Mage/Mortals chaos. I'll sleep when it's all done.

Comments

[kittyboo-tastic.livejournal.com]

funny, i was just thinking about the whys and hows and ifs of friending or not friending today -- i've just joined myspace (for teh seoond time) b/c i wanted to be able to see the pics of a very good friend; i'll have no-one to talk to on myspace, and no interest in that kind of very very quick relationship involved in there. but still i just did it. somehow, i like the format of LJ, the way one can share her/his thoughts with whoever she/he wishes to, and the easiness in doing so. i remember friending a guy once b/c i really loved a comment he made on a community and found out 20 minutes later he was an obnoxiously disgusting racist c***; i promptly erased him of my friendlist and added a 'racist beware' on my profile.
i understand being 'removed' of a flist can hurt. but then, internet relationship are very illusory, aren't they? although some can lead in very beautiful things.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

The internet itself is this odd thing - it is very illusory - you kinda only ever see bits of people - and yet in some ways it can be loads more honest. I know I'm much better at expressing myself here in some ways than I am in person. Odd and tricksy.

Myspace is this complete mystery to me. I just don't understand how it even works. There seem to be about a million different little sections to every page, and I never know what I'm meant to click to do what. Most confusing...

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

I think actually you and I share a lot of the same views on this.

I never friend random people who have found me unless they a) either have a seriously interesting journal or b) have taken the time and trouble to introduce themselves as I ask people to on my info page (and have an interesting journal).

LJ is actually pretty important to me. I don't have many close friends in Japan, and it's an important thing to know there are people out there who I do like and value, and the fact that I'm not in the same physical location as them doesn't change that.

(p.s. haven't forgotten about your five questions - it's just proving harder than I thought at the mo because I'm in an I hate Japan mood at present :/)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

No worries about the five questions. I am quite forgiving when it comes to memes :p

It must be said, I do sometimes really wish LJ had existed when I was in my teens and living in Nepal, but the internet in general just wasn't as accessible as it is now. It's weird how things have changed in ten years - when I was a nineteen year old in Nepal, most people didn't have personal e mail addresses. There were two internet cafes in Kathmandu, and the way they both worked is that you could use the e mail address belonging to the internet cafe to send an e mail. Any replies you got would be printed out, and next time you went in, you could search through this pile of print outs to see if there was anything for you.

I can only imagine how many internet cafes there are in the tourist area of Kathmandu now!

email in parts of Asia

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

Interestingly though, when I was working in Singapore, I was doing some research on email use with a guy based in India (an Indian himself) and he said that in India, because literacy rates are lower, the internet cafe does still work like a village Post Office in the way that you describe, at least when it comes to the smaller villages. Older people in the villages can't read or write so well so they use a common point for email - which is written for them - and when they get a mail back it is read out to them. I found that fascinating.

In complete contrast to Singapore that is which is installing free wireless broadband all over the city in a bid to attract tourists and has a gazillion internet cafes.

Re: email in parts of Asia

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

So, it sounds like the small villages (which normally had a single communal telephone when I was out there) now work a bit like Kathmandu? I'd guess Kathmandu has more internet access - tis the capital, and used to be a massive tourist hub.

Singapore is, from what I've heard, very very different!

Re: email in parts of Asia

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

Yes defo get loads of internet cafes anywhere that is on a tourist trail it seems.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I get around that sort of worry by never checking the list of who has me 'friended' today. I write down what's in my head and if people want to read it, then hurrah. If they don't, then hey ho. I'm writing for me, not for other people.

[liamgaidin.livejournal.com]

Sooooo
No review of the 300? Or have I missed it? :)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I appear to have forgotten to write a review of 300. Must get round to that!

Have you seen it yet?

[liamgaidin.livejournal.com]

Yup. Saw it opening night. Been waiting to see what the Sally thought of it though. :)

300

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Well, I liked it enough that I'm going to see it again at the imax.

On the other hand, I did get some very inappropriate giggling fits throughout. It was daft in places - the Spartans running into battle wearing only their leather speedos, the way Gerard Butler got more and more Glaswegian whenever he began to shout, the mysterious way that the bad guy somehow carried all those gold coins on him whilst wearing only a loin cloth and a blanket, the sheer craziness of some of the Persian orcs bad guys - but it was superbly, magnificently daft. I think in some ways I liked it as myth put on screen - it's not history, but then I think the Spartans would probably have preferred to be remembered as myth and legend anyway.

And I've gotta admit to having a bit of a soft spot for Doomed Last Stands (tm).

Re: 300

[liamgaidin.livejournal.com]

Looks like you and I see eye to eye on the 300. :)
Most of the critics I have read do not understand that the movie is mythic and not meant to be historical. It is also told from the Spartan point of view so of course the Persians are going to be vilified while the heroic Spartans needed nothing like armor to help them.

I loved the movie though. Even though Gerard Butler could not keep his accent straight :) I thought it was visually beautiful, had a lot of energy and emotion, and I loved the wife's side story they added.