Your friends, your loved ones, and your online journal.

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How do you feel about discussing your real life acquaintances in your journal? A journal can seem awfully claustrophobic and lonely without those other characters, but do you have a right to talk about other people, even if you only say nice things? Is it honest or worth reading if you only say nice things? How do you deal with this?

How do you feel about reading about yourself in someone else's online journal? Does it feel like they're really describing you, or do you feel like you're reading about someone else? How would you feel if your best friend started an online journal? Would you ask him/her not to talk about you?

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001

Answers

Timely question, Beth. I have been talking some serious smack about my mother and I wonder how long I'll keep it posted. I also know that posting it is Excessive but also, whinily, in hopes she will one day read it--all stuff I've told her. I allow myself to rank only on her and one ex-who's-a-why. And I shouldn't. Otherwise, I try to mention my friends only obliquely and positively. I hope.

I made the mistake of quoting a friend who returned to my life after ten years last June. I had told her about the OLJ, and she said it totally went with my open personality, and she started reading it, and she stopped calling and emailing when she got through three years up to last June and read what I quoted and revealed. She couldn't trust me. I came nearer to really quitting over that than I ever have before or since, hoping that "there. I have quit this thing that means so much to me and through which I have met these great people who, however great, are still distant and unreal, because with it I have hurt you, and I don't want to do that again." But of course, that wouldn't've worked, and I only would've resented her for it even if it *had* worked, and so she is gone.

Most people who've mentioned me (that I know of) mention books and my laugh. That's all good. I guess I trust the people I reveal more personal things to to be discreet.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001


First of all, let me just say that I am a piker when it comes to journals. My readership reaches into the single digits. Heh.

I've gone through a couple of major journal changes, just because I worried about a couple of my readers (for example, my daddy). I killed my old journal and started a new one with no links to the old. I also started a Diaryland account, without a profile, so it's unfindable.

Once I realized I could unload whatever irritation, obscenity, or stupidity I liked on the Diaryland site, I resurrected the old journal, and I don't just let fly there like I do in the other one. And Dad can read my ramblings once more.

Of course, there's a certain amount of double-entry going on, but right now, I have the time and the inclination. So that's how I handle the honesty vs. kindness issue: if I have something nasty to say, I say it on the private site.

I do talk about others, and I don't use their last names, though that wouldn't fool anyone who knew me and the people I work and play with. But that's a small circle, and none of them read it, so I try to keep it in perspective.

Do I have the right to talk about them? Well, I guess not. If someone complained to me, I'd certainly cease and desist.

I wouldn't mind if someone wrote about me, but I'm not in any kind of sensitive position like you described in today's entry. I do have one person I'd just as soon not see, but he's infinitely more likely to call me on the phone than look me up on the web.

I don't know how I'd handle the situation if I were in your shoes, Beth. (Yeah, I'm a goof to even respond, but what the hell.)

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001


G and I have actually had fights because he felt something I wrote "made him look bad". And, on my end, I feel that his constant reference to me as just a pronoun (She or Her--and yes, he did it in uppercase) turned me into a placeholder.

Which is a long about way of saying I don't know how I deal with it. I guess I don't.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001


My best friend -- or, rather, my college roommate -- did start one, as have three or four of our mutual friends. So far none of them have devoted much space to me. My boyfriend doesn't update his journal very often; when I found it, I mostly laughed.

My usual approach is to (a) use pseudonyms for everyone (including myself, obviously), (b) keep it relatively vague, and (c) try not to bitch too much. I have deleted bitch sessions in the past, and will again if the journal becomes more prominent.

The most trouble I've encountered has been from talking about my ex- boyfriend. Our relationship has steadily deteriorated since we broke up. Finally he asked me to stop calling him names, and I agreed; it seemed immature to do otherwise.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001


I always use pseudonyms, I don't have many readers in real life--I haven't told many people, and many of those I have told aren't interested--and I'm nice. Is that a one-sided portrait? Yes. Absolutely. Is it less honest? No.

For me, the key is to leave out whole sections rather than pieces. If someone makes me mad a lot of the time, I don't talk about them. I've lied in my journal, but not about anything I wouldn't lie about in real life. (That sounds way more exciting than it is. Mostly I don't even lie, I just mislead.) I edit. I try not to say anything I wouldn't mind getting back to the person in question. The friends who read my journal are generally delighted to merit a mention, and my husband just wants to make sure all his good one-liners make it in.

I have no pre-journal/extra-journal friends who have taken up journalling. I don't think I'd mind being a character if they weren't talking trash about me; and I certainly don't mind being discussed by other journallers who meet me in person.

I've never really understood the whole "it's not honest if I don't tell you bad things" concept. Sure, if your marriage is breaking down and you refuse to say anything negative, there's going to be a big hole in the story of your life. But would you tell all your friends, coworkers, relatives, and distant acquaintances about what he said that made you say the thing that made him say he was moving out? No. I say I "keep a journal" but really I write a daily piece of non-fiction drawn from my life.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001



I've felt restrained in the past by not being able to tell stories, but often they're not my stories to tell unless it's something that's happening directly to me. If I ever get the urge to write about someone in my life, I usually ask first.

As far as people I'm dating, I made a decision a few months ago to just not write about them. I can mention them in passing, but no personal details. If I mention someone on the site, it's usually not made clear whether it's a friend/lover/relative, whatever.

I just don't want people to feel like they have a personal connection to someone I'm dating when they don't. I've seen other journalers go through bad experiences because their readers got too big a window into their personal life.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001


My tendency is to talk mostly about myself. I know the subject and if I post smack about myself I'm the only one who has to deal with it. Writing about my flowers, computer, animals, or daily life may not lend itself to being the most exciting reading ever but it's how I keep records of how I was feeling at a particular time.

The fact that people take the time out of their day to read my site is neat because it lets me know that there are people out there that get what I'm saying. It also lets me know when I'm being a complete jackass because I'll get e-mail about that too.

My family knows that I have a site. They also know that it's my site and that I'm not going to give them the address because it's my own little world. If any of them come across it on their own then they are just going to have to deal with the fact that there are times when I think they are sunshine & happiness and times when I think they're jackasses. Most of the time when I write something about a person being a jackass they are already aware of it because I've told them to their face. I know there are times when they think I'm a bitch. That's just the way life goes. I would much rather write it out on my site than to be really passive-aggressive about it in my real life.

It doesn't bug me when someone talks about me in their journal. People that know me don't write mean things unless there's a reason. And if there's a reason I'd rather be aware of it so that I can try to fix it or apologize or whatever needs to be done. If someone writes something nice about me then yay :)

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001


I don't usually these types of questions because I feel, underqualified I guess, since I haven't been writing online for very long. But I really wanted to comment this time...

I think it depends on your intent. For me, Jessie's description of her site being "a daily piece of non-fiction drawn from [her] life" is spot on - that's exactly (except for the daily part) what I'm trying to do. Draw a picture of a 29 year old woman living in NYC. It's not a complete picture, but it's not a lie either.

As for mentioning friends, I do it. But only in the context of how they relate to me. I'll say Friend A and I had coffee or went to a ballgame or talk about how we met, but I won't tell the Internet any stories about her that I wouldn't tell at a party in front of her. And it just hasn't been a problem, because I'm not aiming for total disclosure, my life as an open book and all that jazz.

Maybe that's why I don't have any readers. Heh.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001


I've started so many times to write a journal entry on this very subject.. although I try to stay away from "meta-entries" when I can.

I find that for the most part unless I am already friends with someone, I can't read journals that are too personal. The use of initials bugs the fuck out of me, and the half-telling of personal stories turns me off right away. If someone writes, "I'm so pissed at N and Q, they are being such jerks" I as a reader need to know who N and Q are and why they are being jerks.

I think you can *not* use people's real names and not have it be obvious or annoying, especially if you come up with nicknames for everyone. I've never found your journal, for example, to feel bogged down when you say "H" or "Mar" instead of a full name, when you put emails from Jeremy but change his address, etc.

I think I avoid a lot of the wierd sticky issues about talking about my friends in my journal by virtue of the fact that I write for an audience and avoid the super-personal entries.

I do have to be sensitive to other issues. I don't write about union organizing drives in progress on the off chance that a web search may bring up my page and tip off a boss. I don't use union member's names unless they are actually working under a contract that protects them (theoretically it's illegal to fire someone for their union activities, but it happens all the time). I'm careful when talking about other radical activities, who's name I use, what I say, etc.

I also had to worry for a while when I had this off-and-on relationship that really didn't work out well with a woman who read my journal (not to mention several other journals, and very rarely posted here or in 3WA). We would go out and break up and go out and break up and the breakups were always horrible and followed with much vitriol. She would find things to criticize about my journal seemingly as an "interested reader" not as my ex-girlfriend. Finally it led to me disabling my message board (well, that and the fact that I hate Manila's discuss feature). I'm not sure if she still reads my journal, hell, I'm not sure if she's reading this. I found myself being really careful in general about what I wrote, not ever wanting to seem too down or too up, not wanting to ever sound lonely or talk about flirting with people. It was strange.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001


I have a small readership, and there are only two people in my real life (that I know about, anyway) who read the journal. I do think about those two people when I write, though. There have been times when I've wanted to write about a frustration caused by one of my friends, and I haven't done it, because I don't want them to think that I'm using the journal as a way to communicate with them. I am doing that, but not as a way to let them know when I'm frustrated with them. It's just easier for me to say some things in writing.

I don't want either of them to talk to me about what's in the journal. That's probably not fair, but that's how I feel.

The vast majority of what I write is focused inward. The people who read me have found some common bond, and I think that is what they are interested in. My friends are characters, I guess, but they aren't central to the plot of the online journal the way they are central to my real life.

I don't know how I would react if one of my friends were to write an online journal. I would hope that they would respect my privacy, that the secrets I told them were kept that way. I would have a problem if someone used it as a way of communicating something to me that would be better said in person. If I piss someone off, I want them to tell me that in person.

I wouldn't ask any of my friends not to talk about me. If I'm part of their life, I should be part of their journal. It's not up to me to put any kind of restriction on anyone else's words, apart from what I said above about confidences.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2001



aparantly everyone who knows me and everyone who knows them has been reading my website & i never new it. i was strictly in the closet to one group of people, those who work at the summer camp that i do, but it turned out that tons and tons of people who i was sure assumed i was straight (because i gave them no reason to believe otherwise) knew i date girls because they had read about my adventures on the org. oh.

(the whole reason why i was closeted at camp was because i thought some people would have a problem with a dyke living in a cabin with young girls. suspicion confirmed -- after my url got passed around, i got a letter telling me i'm not welcome at camp anymore and they offer no explanation of why. i've been going there since i was 8. i am director of the arts programs. i do my job very well and am one of the most popular councillors (with the kids.) i'm broken up about all this. anyway.)

i always name names except in the case of my (now ex-)girlfriend, who i met via a hardcore orgfan who was then (oops) dating her. once the orgfan figured out that my new girlfriend was the same person as her current girlfriend, i suffered enough guilt to pretty much stop talking about my perfect perfect wonderful wonderful romance for a while. about two years. once all the involved parties knew who was who, i continued with the nickname so as not to confuse the uninvolved parties who had no idea. and i didn't confess to being a homewrecker because i had wrecked that home enough and rehashing what had gone down (gleefully or otherwise) would have just been mean. so then i'm the jerk who didn't admit to being an evil, girlfriend- stealking bitch. there's no way to do the right thing in this situation. i guess not steal someone's girlfriend in the first place.

the jilted ex/orgfan had, by this time been inspired by my site to start her own online journal, so when the shit hit she talked quite a bit of trash about me. if i linked to it, she got angry with me. it was quite a situation.

so yeah, i name names and suffer the consequences.

and i think it's fun getting mentioned on the websites of others, whether it's positive or negative.

the only thing i feel guilty about is hooking up with people who didn't understand what it meant when i told them there was a webcam pointing at my bed. i don't do *that* anymore. (trashy! trashy!)

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


I go into way too much detail when writing about friends and acquaintences. I don't give out full names and I mostly give them "stage" names. I feel guilty writing about people I know in my journal, but that doesn't stop me. It puts my problem with gossiping into documentation and I'm sure that one day it will come back and bite me in the ass. I have friends who read my journal and I'll write about them. But only if it's good or funny or good and funny. If I had an issue with them, I wouldn't deal with it in my journal. Unless I was willing to no longer count them amongst my friends. I would suppose I have the right to talk about them (freedom of speech) but not the right to slander them (that's why the fictitious names...I don't think it would hold up in a court of law). Now if my mom ever bought a computer, I'd probably have to delete a large percentage of my entries.

Now if anyone wants to talk about me in their journal, that's fine by me. They can spew about me as long as they don't post my last name, my address or my clothing/bra size.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


After much waffling and some serious archive editing, I have settled on the idea that I will only write in a "character" way about people who know I have a journal and have the URL. That means my husband, my oldest friend, my journaling friends and relatives, and that's it. I do mention my mom and my stepdad, but I don't use them as characters.

I draw a line when writing about other poeple - I don't write *their* stories, just stories from my life that include them. My husband likes it when I write about him and if he says something really witty, he asks if I'm going to put it in. My oldest friend said she likes it when I write about her.

I sometimes ignore that rule, however, and tell stories about people I work with. Which is not a good idea at all. Not at all! So I comment them out later when I come to my senses.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


I have a million scattered things in my head about this topic. When I first had a website, no one I knew was online. Now, my mother in law reads my site, all of my inlaws do, my parents do, my friends do, and I feel like I have to be very, very careful about what I say now. And I can't link to sites that I love, (like this one), because I don't want them popping up in the forum here, or following me around online.

I don't talk about my friends - I can't really - because some of them have very public lives - one is a politician, another is an actress, and it isn't fair for me to contribute to what is said about them in public, I don't think. When I write about other people on my site, I often turn them into a conglomeration of several people that I know - I don't write stories about them, so usually other people pop up only to the extent that they move my own stories along, and I rationalize that since that is the case, it doesn't really matter if fictionalize them a little, for privacy.

One of my offline type friends has a personal site now - this week I have been watching her cam, which is pointed at her living room - her dog has been crapping all over her rug for the last week. Cracks me up! And in the sortablog she keeps, I recognize myself as a character in the stories, but I know that no one else would - I see my funnier lines in the dialogue, and some of the spazzy things I have done - I like to think of all of this as 'a character based on ....' rather than a specific character study of my friends.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


Hmmm -- this is a toughy that I've tangled with over the years. I don't feel as if I can write properly without talking about my real life friends, family and acquaintances, but at the same time, there are areas where I'd be stepping on toes.

Generally, when that happens, I either keep mum, or start 'vaguelizing' -- talking about what's going on in the vaguest of terms only, being oblique in the extreme, because my OLJ -is- in public.

It's one thing to write about how things that are happening are affecting -me- and another to delve into other people's private matters.

There's a line there ... it's a bit blurry at times, so I tend to err on the side of caution and largely, refrain from going into detail about certain things, or talking about them at all.

I save it for my paper journal.

As for other people writing about -me- this has only happened a handful of times.

I am only ever the subject of other's writing a) if one particular friend happens to mention me in her journal, and her journal is anonymous and mentions no names anymore b) if I meet another online journaler and am then described by that person and c) if Lance writes about me.

-a- happens the most often -- and usually I am interested in said friends' perspective, viewing the journal as an extension to our offline conversations.

-b- happens every few months or so when I meet someone new from the journaling community. I've yet to disagree with any of the descriptions of myself, or the meetings I've had with other online journalers.

-c- happens irregularly, but is always of interest. Lance is an ex- sweetie and just plain an interesting fellow.

So generally my reaction to being written about is one of interest in the perspective of someone else on myself.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001



Being middle-aged and married makes it easy for me to write journal entries. I do mention my husband and closest friends (they all have pseudonyms which are recognizable to all of us, even the 5 year old) but only in a positive context. There's little high drama in my life, so I rarely feel restrained. My journal is a place for me to tell my little stories and I mention others as they are part of those stories, but I don't write "about" the other folks.

The test I use is "Is this mine to tell?" If it isn't, I leave it out. The closest I've come to crossing the line is an entry about a non-local friend who didn't die during surgery because of a very smart and attentive doctor--but the story was really about the doctor's excellent handling of the medical situation and the surgery was of a type considered appropriate to discuss in public. It's a story I believe would be acceptable to tell to a perfect stranger in a discussion about doctors who have done well, so I decided it was okay to put up online.

The only times I've been mentioned in other folks' journals, it's all been quite nice stuff, and again, something I wouldn't mind having the author tell to a stranger, e.g. "My friend Wendy gave me this book as a present," and I've enjoyed seeing my name in lights.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001


These days my so-called journal is one of those hidden Diaryland ones, so no problems so far. I try to restrain myself from talking about work issues, etc., anyway just in case, but I have been quite tempted to talk about other people's personal issues- a few friends are in love trianges that for some reason I feel like talking about. One friend keeps getting back together again and then getting dumped by the same jackass over and over and over and over and over again in the last two months, and this is just godawful annoying. Okay, so the chances of her finding it are low and I'm not using any real names, but I should probably be more cautious than I am.

My ex-roommate had a journal back when I had a public one, and we'd write entries back and forth from time to time. Which was fun. The only time I got annoyed at her was finding out that something she claimed to be okay about (repeatedly) wasn't at all, whatsoever *sigh*.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001


this is a very distressing topic for me. I had an online journal, that a few people knew about. I talked about work, my husband, my cat - mostly benign things. my mother knew about the journal, and asked for the url awhile ago. I told her it was my own little world and preferred not to share it. well, a few months ago, she was typing my name (and my husband's name) into google and found it. I felt a little betrayed in a way, even though I knew the risks involved. (my mistake was mentioning my inlaws by their last name, which isn't a very common name, and that's how it popped up.)

so I yanked the whole site down and I haven't done anything with it since. but I miss it. I can't decide if I want to return to that url or start fresh with a pseudonym (which I've learned from this forum isn't a perfect solution, either).

getting back to the original question...I felt I had every right to say what I did. I didn't name anyone by name. I might have said my mom, my cousin, my husband... so yes, I was a little irritated when she voiced her disapproval (and that she had shown it to my father!) but I guess I don't feel confident enough to continue doing it. at least for now.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001


I tried to think how I feel about being described as "looking sleepy," and, I guess it's better than Beth suspecting I had a tapeworm. It's true, I was sleepy.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

It's not like sleepiness is an inherent part of your look or anything. It was just the discreet yawning that tipped me off.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

I use my journal to write stories from my life as an exercise in "creative non-fiction," meaning I edit and embellish slightly from time to time for readability or effect. Some of the stuff I write is personal and emotional, but since I don't really vent or work out my issues like some people do, there is not much there for someone to get hurt or offended over. I do mention people from real life using pseudonyms for privacy reasons. My husband reads my journal, and it would be pretty easy for my daughter to find since Diaryland always logs me in automatically without using my password. So I don't say anything that I feel would hurt either of them if they read it. Come to think of it, I don't think I would say anything about anyone that would make me uncomfortable if they read it... while I think it's unlikely that anyone I know will find my diary, it's certainly possible and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

As for people talking about me? Well, I only know one other journaler IRL, a cousin of my husband. I only know him slightly so I doubt I'd ever get a mention, but if my name did come up I would hope he wouldn't reveal anything personal about me since my hubby's whole family knows about his diary and there are aspects of my life that I don't particularly want them to know about, like my bisexuality. Other than that, I'd feel flattered if the comments were positive and hurt or indifferent if they were negative, the same as if I'd overheard someone talking about me IRL. Although I suppose if someone was writing about situations in my life and then critiquing, it'd probably tick me off simply because unwanted analysis and unasked for advice is just annoying as hell.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001


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