I’m a semi-private individual. In that, I will speak of things I am comfortable talking about by my own filtering. Once I let it out and speak of it, it could very well mean that I was comfortable posting that and almost nothing can make me feel guilt or embarrassment of saying it.
One thing I have observed people slipping on is that, people tend to have no filter. So they go on and on and on about themselves, not having a sense of the mind to think that someone out there, anywhere, could be documenting them. Sadly, there are those people that are out there.
On one hand, someone just wants to communicate, project themselves, let others know who they are. On another hand, they won’t know whether or not they’re being documented so that in turn, are re-broadcast to another community or someone else who is gonna just have a field day with some aspects of what you spoke about that could later crop up when you least expect it.
Often times you’ll hear people say that they don’t care what others think. It’s funny how most of the time that is uttered and it is challenged, people end up folding pretty fast at times. It implies that yes, you do to a degree, care about what people think of what you’ve said.
So this is why I’m semi-private. If I have the thought of ‘I don’t think I’m that comfortable talking about this’ then it is simply not spoken of. I think some people need to occasionally think that way.
There is some truth to the unwritten rule of the internet where, you shouldn’t gush too much about all aspects of your life. Reserve that for online journals or blogs.
Very open IRL and online. I don’t understand the concept of shame around basic boring facts of my humanity.
It upsets a lot of people. Often people who are very concerned about their image and seeking validation from other people who are very closed off and present themselves in a very selective way. These people often accuse me of being pretentious and judgemental… which is precisely what they are doing, and often are deeply ashamed of themselves.
I just don’t really understand what the big deal is personally. But I grew up in a household where everything i did was constantly shamed, so I just kind of became indifferent to it because most of my family are really stupid people who get upset about every inconsequential thing. Over the holiday my brother asked me what dish I wanted for from Chinese take out, and I asked what kind of chinese and he called me a stupid asshole for asking that. Where I live there are different styles of Chinese food, where he lives there is only shitty Americanized Chinese food. In his mind I an asshole for even asking the question. Where I live they don’t have every dish at every place and I don’t ever really get the americanized dishes.
I also went to a famous college and people’s reactions to that fact about me… alarming. I don’t really regard my attendance of this place as significant, but my biggest regret about going is the way people treat me because of it. If someone doesn’t care about it, I’m genuinely impressed, because most people care about it and attack me for it because it makes them feel inadequate or something. It’s been an issue in so many relationships/friendships and I just don’t understand why it is relevant at all, but to other people this fact is extremely important.