[understand]
I have created a new Friends Group called "understand".
This is the first friends group I have ever created for the purpose of posting only to a select group of my friends list. It is unfortunate that I feel the need to do this, but I don't see any other way around it. There are people who would not understand certain aspects of my life. And, normally, it wouldn't bother me that these people wouldn't understand. Normally, I wouldn't care if someone chose to make fun of me or make light of situations involving me. I am a pretty strong person and I can handle being the center of someone else's jokes. However, there are some aspects of my life that I am very self-conscious about, things that I am sensitive about. That is not to say that I cannot handle criticism or discussion involving those things, I just am not sure how I would react to those aspects of my life being used as the focal point of someone else's humor… even if it is meant as nothing but good clean fun.
I know that in doing this I will be leaving out many people who could contribute to or receive something from the posts that I will be making to this group. There are many people who read my journal that do not have LiveJournal accounts. There are people who read my journal, but are not on my friends list. Unfortunately, those people will not be able to view these posts.
There are also people who I would normally include in this group, but because I don't want their boyfriends or girlfriends or roommates or best friends to read these posts, I have to leave them out for fear that they would not honor my request by not sharing the posts to this group with those people. I am sorry for this.
Those of you who know me, or have been reading my journal for a while will know that (not counting "private" posts, which I use to store unfinished journal entries) I have posted exactly 3 "friends-only" posts. Two of those were griping about an ex-girlfriend of mine who posted something less than tasteful about me in her online journal that I discovered without her knowledge. I didn't want her knowing that I found it, so I marked the posts "friends-only" so she wouldn't be able to follow the referrer links. The third one was a request to all of you to send jaclyn text messages on her birthday. I didn't want her to know I did that, so I posted it to a friends group that didn't include her.
Hopefully, through the use of this friends group, my sensitivity to humor and ridicule regarding these topics will be diminished and someday I will be able to delete this friends group all together.
To act as a reminder to you, dear reader, that these posts should not be shared in any way with individuals that are not in this group, each post to this group will be marked with the word "understand" as you see at the top of this post. Unfortunately, LiveJournal doesn't have any way of letting you see who is on a particular list and posting a roster here wouldn't do much good as the members list can change daily. So, unless you see that an individual has posted a comment to a post, do not assume that they are a member of this group. If you want to know, just ask me. If you feel you have not been included in this group, and want to know why, send me an email or comment here, and I'll tell you. If after you see the posts to this group, you know of another LJ user that might enjoy, benefit from or contribute to these posts, let me know and I will add them to the group.
This group is really meant to keep a few people out, as opposed to only letting a few people in.
That being said, I have a very open "friends list policy". If you read my journal, and are NOT on my friends list, but would like to be so you can read these posts… just add me as a friend. Or, if you would rather not… just send me an email, and I will add you as a friend.
Discussion regarding this friends group, my reasonings behind it, and the need (or lack there of) for such a group should be held over email, or in the comments of this post.
Thank you for reading.
