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drew at 09:18am on 02/01/2007 under cool kids on the playground, uphill both ways in the snow
drew at 09:18am on 02/01/2007 under cool kids on the playground, uphill both ways in the snowI saw a post last night that I thought was directed at me because of a snarky comment I left. Then it turns out it wasn't. But it still might have been. WTF, self? ANYway, this is the post I wanted to make at 2am, only cleaned up a bit for, you know, being the morning and all.
I have now seen two posts saying "don't keep me friended if you don't like what you read" or something to that effect, and while I agree that's good policy in theory, it doesn't hold up super-well in practice. In the last three months, I was defriended by people I thought I was fairly close to, and you know what? It stung. Yes, I'll get over it. But it's still hard to deal with, sometimes. Maybe those of you who post "defriend at whim!" can pretend to be all ironic and detatched and that it doesn't mean anything when someone you think you're friends with hits the "remove friend" button, but I'm not good at that game -- I can't pretend I don't have emotional energy invested in the LJ community I hang with. For me to put on a brave face and say "hey, it doesn't matter!" is not only a lie, but it's damn hard to do. I'm not that good at concealing my emotions, and I try to be really honest with people -- if you meet me, I'm pretty much exactly like my LJ. I've tried to do the "oh, this is just my internet life" thing, where you try not to care about people you meet on LJ, but in reality, that shit doesn't work -- personal details get exchanged in comment threads and posts, and the people I follow along (and I do read my whole friendslist 99% of the time), I become closer with. When they decide for whatever reason that they'd rather not read me anymore, that stings, because I've come to think of them as people and as friends. If you don't care about that, if you're only on LJ for the fiction and the people don't matter to you, why bother friending people at all? Get an LJ for comment purposes, friend the newsletter, and be done with it. Comment on stories you like, maybe.
All of which is to say: yes, it's your LJ, your rules. Friend who you want, drop who you want. Just consider that maybe, if you've had any significant interaction with the people you drop, they might be a little hurt and confused. A little explanation goes a long way. Sure, life's too short to bother with drama, but by "avoiding" drama, you may create more than you "avoid".
I have now seen two posts saying "don't keep me friended if you don't like what you read" or something to that effect, and while I agree that's good policy in theory, it doesn't hold up super-well in practice. In the last three months, I was defriended by people I thought I was fairly close to, and you know what? It stung. Yes, I'll get over it. But it's still hard to deal with, sometimes. Maybe those of you who post "defriend at whim!" can pretend to be all ironic and detatched and that it doesn't mean anything when someone you think you're friends with hits the "remove friend" button, but I'm not good at that game -- I can't pretend I don't have emotional energy invested in the LJ community I hang with. For me to put on a brave face and say "hey, it doesn't matter!" is not only a lie, but it's damn hard to do. I'm not that good at concealing my emotions, and I try to be really honest with people -- if you meet me, I'm pretty much exactly like my LJ. I've tried to do the "oh, this is just my internet life" thing, where you try not to care about people you meet on LJ, but in reality, that shit doesn't work -- personal details get exchanged in comment threads and posts, and the people I follow along (and I do read my whole friendslist 99% of the time), I become closer with. When they decide for whatever reason that they'd rather not read me anymore, that stings, because I've come to think of them as people and as friends. If you don't care about that, if you're only on LJ for the fiction and the people don't matter to you, why bother friending people at all? Get an LJ for comment purposes, friend the newsletter, and be done with it. Comment on stories you like, maybe.
All of which is to say: yes, it's your LJ, your rules. Friend who you want, drop who you want. Just consider that maybe, if you've had any significant interaction with the people you drop, they might be a little hurt and confused. A little explanation goes a long way. Sure, life's too short to bother with drama, but by "avoiding" drama, you may create more than you "avoid".
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