Love and Freindship

[shewhomust]

Being the first post of the second year of LiveJournaling, introspective, retrospective and egotistical in the extreme. Feel free to pass it by.

The ostensible purpose of opening an LJ was to read, rather than to write. I already had several LJ addresses among my bookmarked blogs, there were others that were syndicated here, and kelpercomehome was about to set off on her travels with promises to write. I knew I would want to post occasionally, too; I'd set up enough blogs on other people's web sites and felt enough twinges of jealousy - or just had enough thoughts of the "I could write that in my blog, if I had a blog" variety - to know that, given a place to write, I would write in it.

But I didn't know how often, or how much I would enjoy it. Writing here occupies more of my time than I ever imagined, and substantially more of my thoughts. More than anything else I write - the book diary, the letters, the text of other people's web sites - it is both public and personal, written for me and yet written to be read. It has been a huge and unexpected pleasure.

Since I had not expected to be writing seriously, obviously I had not expected to be read, either. I knew there were people whose journals I wanted to read, but I'd thought of my friends page as a sort of magazine compiled just for me, with my favourite columnists and news sources. I hadn't anticipated the difference that reciprocity would make. I knew that the word friends was being used in a technical sense, and didn't mean that we were really friends - but I didn't know how welcoming and encouraging some of my "friends" would prove, or how funny and talented and wise, I didn't know that there would be the twin temptations of wanting them to be real friends, and them behaving as if they were.

I've been entranced, too, by the sheer variety of my friends's lives, and by the richness of the things I didn't choose them for. I friend a selection of people who are talking interestingly about books, for example, and suddenly my "magazine" is full of music recommendations and wonderful descriptions of the weather in the desert. There's a whole world out there, and it's full of my friends.

This would be the place to establish a friending policy. It's a terrible phrase, but it expresses a useful meaning. Different people clearly have different assumptions about how it works, and I may have given offense in the past (and may well do so again in future) by bludering into conversations which were - well, not private, exactly, evidently, but not entirely public either, conversations at which an uninvited contribution was met with a chilly silence. This may be oversensitive - maybe those contributions just didn't merit a response - and in any case, it doesn't apply to anyone who is likely to be reading this. But I have certainly seen other people asking permission to do things which I have just blithely done as if I had a right to. Apologies to anyone on whose toes I may have trampled.

And the policy of this journal is that public entries are public (and there are very few f-locked entries). Comments are not only permitted, they are encouraged, and you don't have to be a friend to comment.

If you do wish to friend me, I will be delighted: you don't have to ask permission (in fact, it's probably better not to - that way, if you decide to unfriend me, we can both pretend it never happened, which will be less embarrassing for both of us). I don't automatically reciprocate: I'm trying to keep my reading list under control.

Comments

Commonplace book

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

I've always enjoyed dipping into your commonplace book, at first in the actual pages and latterly in its online version: it seemed on reading your posting that it complements your LJ.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I am delighted you're here.

Nine

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

*blushes*

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

I am, too! I spent a lot of time trying to think of a more eloquent response...but this will have to do. And since I haven't said this before- thank you for friending me first. I don't think I'd know about your journal otherwise, and that would be my loss.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Well, I only did it because I was enjoying your posts, y'know.

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

And, of course, I have always enjoyed what you have to say - both face to face and virtually, so, again, of course, I would have to have you as friend. It was you starting your LJ that got me off my arse to start blogging again after the Blog on my website died.

[cellio]

One of the neat things about this medium is that it does open up those other windows. We meet people we never would have run into otherwise, and then they talk about things we wouldn't have otherwise paid attention to. I never know what to expect on my reading list, and that's a good thing.