Privacy and Personas

So, I haven't written in ages. But it's not for lack of trying.

Well, not completely. I've started 2 posts and have them both pretty close to finished, but I've honestly been a bit too drained to wrap either of them up. I've had a lot going on, and also just needed to take some extra time to rest. Hopefully just putting this up tonight will help me get over the hump.I think I'm going to keep this one a little more casual than usual.

I guess I struggle a little bit with trying to decide how much I'm comfortable sharing, and with whom--what my privacy settings need to be, which social media sites get to know my full name, etc. The more anonymity I can have, the freer I feel to let loose and really share. I'm thinking now that I've quit facebook, and therefore no longer share the link to this blog over there when I update, most of the people who drop in here will either be people I trust or people who have no idea who I am. I think that will probably work for me.

I made the decision to leave fb once they rolled out the ticker. Now, they make sitewide changes all the time, and while I find them mildy irritating, I usually just roll with them anyway. But the ticker was a huge problem for me, because I had put a lot of effort into limiting exactly who can see exactly what when it came to my posts. The ticker put the choice of what is seen in the hands of the other people, not in mine, so pretty much anyone on my "friends" lists could now see ALL of my comments on other friends' statuses and photos as I made them; while it was possible for them to see these things before, it would have been much more difficult for them to see unless they also commented on the same item.  I also wasn't entirely sure whether people I don't know would be able to see my status updates or photos if a mutual friend commented there, despite my settings. The only private place left was the private message, and that kind of takes the joy out of having conversations about specific items.

Anyway, none of this might have been such a big deal to me if I were a different person. But the person I am is one who made the painful and nerve-wracking decision recently to cut off contact with my emotionally unstable mother and my enabling and manipulative father, and who had only very limited communications with them for years before that. The person I am is one who just simply doesn't trust everyone, and who doesn't like everyone she knows to know everything there is to know about her, even if they're not lunatics. While I'd rather not be out-of-the-loop when it comes to birth announcements and wedding photos and news of friends' week-long hospital stays, when it came down to making a choice between missing all of that important social information or feeling like it wasn't safe to share any information of my own, the person I am chose the former.


Now, I have been spending more time over at g+, and I did just join twitter (what!), and I certainly am under no illusions that either of those sites is perfect when it comes to privacy, either. But I should still be able to keep up with at least a few people. If you know me in real life, look for me on one of those sites, or shoot me an email, or leave me a message here. I might also be willing to learn to use the telephone.


I really hate the telephone.


But I digress.


Anyway, I guess my main focus over the past several months has been trying to figure out exactly how much contact I'm comfortable with from people who make me uncomfortable. And what it's come down to is: Pretty much zero. But learning that--and making the changes I needed to make--has given me the most peaceful 6 months of my entire life. And now, I think I may be ready to write again.