Opinions

[homolingual]

We all have friends on LJ, but when online friends crossover with real life friends, dynamics change. Recently, one of my real life friends defriended me because of some of my content. He then IMed me to tell me that this changes nothing in our relationship. I felt differently. There's a definite discrepancy in what I say here versus what I would

Comments

[estrange_bill]

"There's a lot more that I can say here than I can in real life."

I would argue with this thought, but in general I think that reading (or in this case not reading someone's blog) can be a completely neutral standpoint. I see no reason stopping reading should negatively impact a relationship (unless the two persons involved expressed negative effects).

[homolingual]

Ah. I think I see why you would think about deleting your journal then. See, to me, this is a space for me to be me as I am for myself rather than as I am for someone else. And for someone to say that they no longer want to read that means to me that they want to only interact with the me that I present to them in person. While I try to be as I am when I'm by myself and try not to have too many differences between my identities, I can't manage to do that fully. Here, I have a place to either be me without social identity or to assume my online social identity and address a more specific audience as I did here

[estrange_bill]

I understand that, but in my opinion there need not be any inherent differences between one's online self and there face-to-face self. Granted, how someone may say something or formulate an idea is different when expressed through different mediums (and definitely when allowed more time to better frame things). But ultimately, the essence of the person should exist in both instances (regardless of the accuracy of communication

[homolingual]

Er. Different social interactions require us to make different social identities. Regardless of my want, that's what I am. I use less cursing around my parents. I take on more feminine forms while with some of my gal pals. I use more insults when the atmosphere is more masculine. My stance changes sometimes and my demeanor will change based on who I'm with. That's just what happens. It's not a conscious thing. It's a natural aspect of human adaptability. I'm not a completely different person, but I'm different, and I'm much, much, much more aware of that since having worked in linguistics analyzing my speech and having read "The Social Me." (The author's name escapes me now.)

This is the case with most everyone. We adapt to the social atmosphere. When we don't, we're seen as outliers. We're still us, but we're a different self for every social group.

[fairysky]

Because of how I am, I think I would be slightly hurt if that happened to me. I only have one friend on here that I have offline, and our friendship is probably closer because of this blog. She knows as well as I do that I'm rubbish at sharing things out loud, and I put my thoughts into writing much more successfully. That's just me though :)

[homolingual]

I actually do both, but yeah, I'm better at expressing myself in writing. And honestly, we don't hang out as much as we used to, and our catch-up is superficial most of the time unless there's something important to talk about. Our interactions are activity-oriented, so the personal communication done online and the windows we get into each other's lives on here are not unimportant.

So yeah, basically, I know how you feel. :)

[innamoramento]

I'm not sure how to answer, mostly because I've never had an offline friend who was actually willing to read and/or discuss what I've written in my journal. If you notice, the ones who comment and are willing to talk about things are the people I've met on LJ itself.

I've never had very many offline friends, though, being as shy as I am. The ones I have friended that I know don't read my journal don't bother me, I guess because I'm used to it. A defriending would likely hurt, though. When my one friend changed journals and didn't bother to tell me, it hurt, but I've since gotten over it. We weren't that close anyway, and we don't really associate with each other anymore.

[homolingual]

Yeah, social closeness definitely affects how much it hurts. This is one of my best friends in real life, so yeah, it's a little closer to home.

[gero_jimbo]

I guess I'll weigh in because my friends list is equal parts online friends and people I know outside of the computer world.

I think the reading or not reading of a RL friend's blog is a neutral standpoint like estrange_bill said up there, though I think that having someone stop reading could sting a little. It depends on the reasoning and how it's handled more than anything, I think. It's understandable to think that people may utilize the site more than others, etc. If they're just defriending you and it's because of "your content," well, that's a little more personal I think (depending on the content, of course, but it does send a message).

Hard to say, though. It's definitely... situational.

[homolingual]

Ah. Yeah. This reminds me of our one form graphing to one function problem in lingusitics. You really do have to look at the context. And yes, I personally feel that this context was not a completely neutral act. I don't feel it was malicious either. That doesn't change the sort of hurt that I felt from being told that this was happening.

And now I'm realizing that I was also hurt by him telling me that this wouldn't affect our relationship. As if he was the arbitrator of that. I think the majority of the hurt resulted from the timing of it, though.

[anonymous]

I think it depends on the people involved... if both think it will affect them or if at least one does, it definitely will. if both thinks it doesn't, then it won't.

as for me personally, friends on my lj doesn't matter to me, especially if we are linked somewhere else (chat, life circumstances like class&work etc, game, some other place like twitter, etc...) my journal is public and people can visit it all they want and feel free to remove me if they want

just like how i want to feel i can remove them whenever i feel like it without feeling like i am cutting off my relation with them

and i already have many a person who stopped reading my blogs and this and that but still talk to them everyday or have contact in some way, so i am pretty sure it depends on the people involved and how you both handle it.

I also haven't added people to my lj in ages and they all seem fine i don't add them because i visit from time to time anyway

[miluda]

dammit that was me