2000-11-06 - 22:06:45
Widening Web: A Meta-Entry

Widening Web: A Meta-Entry

As Joey has written, our mutual friend Matt (my ex-lover) has been toying with the idea of starting up his own online journal and reading ours. At first, Joey and I decided to test his motivation, insisting he start one up and get two weeks' worth of entries written before we'd exchange our URLs with him. Matt didn't like that idea very much: "Fine! Be that way!" were his exact words.

Joey and I thought we'd nipped this in the bud, but Matt's curiosity intensified about starting up online; we backed down from the two-weeks'-worth-of-writing-to-prove-you're-serious requirement, told him we were ready to help him get set up. We were quite looking forward to Matt being part of our several-times-daily Diaryland conversations.

We initiated the big talk with Matt Friday night: he bamboozled us--in his own inimitable fashion--by insisting that he was no longer the slightest bit interested in reading our journals. Now he simply wanted the main diary URL so he could start up his own, and no, he didn't want us reading his. Fair enough. I opted to give him the Diary-X site's address, and I don't know whether he'll start up there or not. But perhaps, some day we shall fully disclose; it will be fascinating to see what emerges.

In the meantime, my close friend (and briefly-former boyfriend) Daniel too has been fascinated as I've told him about the creative stimulation, the network of online friends I've made through this journal. I regularly email him "cut-and-paste" entries from Queer Scribbles, which is something I've done with other friends as well; this way, I retain control over the disclosure process, and so don't censor myself as I write because Daniel, or whoever, doesn't know the URL address; it is totally up to me which entries I retrospectively decide to share. But today, for the first time he expressed an interest in starting up.

This is where it gets tricky, because if Daniel begins an online journal, any decision to disclose my URL to him is inextricably bound up with my concern and respect for Joey's privacy. Joey and Daniel met a couple times back when Daniel and I were dating a year ago, quite liked one another, and do not have any ongoing friendship. I would not disclose my URL to Daniel or any other friend without Joey's full permission.

And for months I've been extolling the fabulousness of online journalling to my old friend, lipstick-lesbian Sarah; a few weeks' back, she too expressed an interest in starting up, or at least reading some of the diaries out there. She began Google-searching for online journals, but found mostly crap. Could I recommend some of my faves to her, she wondered?

Well, as I explained to her, there was one problem: virtually all of my favorite online journals link to me. (A similar double-bind I'm in with Mom: I'm dying to have her read Marn, I know she'll fall in love with her, but do I really want my mother--however "cool" she is--reading about my exploits? Would she be able to refrain from clicking on Marn's link back to me?) Sarah understood my predicament, and instead I gave her the Diarist.Net link, suggesting she browse through the hundreds of journals listed there.

Sarah doesn't do anything half-assed; unbeknownst to me, she has been avidly exploring hundreds of online journals ever since. Today she called me to announce that, quite by accident, she stumbled onto mine. (Through Tom's links page) Sarah was only on my page for three minutes, but recognized me immediately: both my writing style and the adoption story which, as an adoptee herself, I've shared at length with her.

I am impressed with how admirably Sarah handled this in alerting me immediately. I am not upset with her in the slightest--shocked that this has happened, but not upset. I told her on the phone tonight that "a friend of mine" also keeps an online journal, that I link to him from my site, and if it wasn't for that I would have no trouble with her reading me regularly. Taking care not to mention Joey's name, I said I would have to talk to "my friend" about this accidental breach and then get back to her. Sarah made it clear that she would not re-access my site without permission, that whatever me and "my friend" decide is fine with her.

Joey took the news quite well; he's going to think about it for a day or so, but his initial reaction is that he doesn't much care if Sarah (who he knows only slightly) has potential access to--or, in fact, reads--his diary. Understandably, he doesn't want Sarah's best friend Brad--also a good buddy of Joey's--reading it; I presume this won't be a problem--no doubt Sarah won't want Brad reading hers either.

Anyway, I guess the interest in online journalling amongst our real-life friends was bound to happen. Visiting with friends, Joey and I do go on about our secret Diaryland lives.

Until he started his journal, Joey and I were "old friends" without much of a present-day connection; in the past several months, a vibrant intimacy has grown up between us that eclipses that zany closeness of our late-80's friendship. Will a similar connectedness always result from online openness?

I wonder.

I am not a very private person; if it weren't for my vocation, the size of the city I'm living in, I would be much more open here about my identity. Were it not for how sacrosanct Joey's privacy is to me, I probably would have disclosed this URL to most of my close friends by now too.

And yet, and yet, I wouldn't want everyone I know reading Queer Scribbles. Certainly no one I’m sexually involved with. (Never mind what would happen should I someday--and no doubt, hopefully, this day will come, with all you sexy queer diarists out there, eh?--become erotically involved with someone I've met because of the online journal…yeesh, the concept boggles my mind. No need to ask "Was it good for you? -- I can read all about it in the guy's next entry…)

I don't have a bad feeling about the possibility of welcoming more real-live friends in on this online part of my life. I'm not a very private person; there is nothing I write about here that I wouldn't tell Matt, or Daniel, or Sarah anyway. I do know that--should I write about any of them--I would not do so as candidly as if they were not readers.

I am the author, dammit! I decide whether you are my story's character or reader.

But wait, but wait: like Joey, these other friends may actually write about me! Authorial control oozes away from me. I shall be cast adrift in a Calvino-esque morass.

Whether more people I love start up online or not, we are all writing and reading one another. Characters are not merely in search of authors, nor authors simply questing after characters; all of us, always, concoct one another out of our inmost story-pools.

Methinks this shall be interesting.

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