06-27-03 @ 7:31 pm EDT

I'm glad at the moment that, even though I don't really check out their journals anymore (I've just grown bored of most journals I used to like...though there are at least two notable exceptions for me, on this site), I'm in good company with the people who have included disclaimers which state, "If you don't like my journal or if you want to bitch about the entries, then f**k off." According to some mindsets you would believe that the mere fact of opening an online journal is to willingly expose yourself to blatant criticism of lifestyles (or should I say, ways of life) that said critics don't always understand. (I would never expect somebody who does not have an anxiety disorder to understand the things that I go through and that go through my head, and I never did.) This is not, however, always the case...and I can at least feel confident that I'm not the only one who knows this.

Two of the other most popular journals on this site, including THE most popular one, at one time or another included disclaimers on their main pages stating something much akin to "If you want to bitch at me because of my journal entries, then buzz off." Is it too much for a journaler to expect COMPLETE compliance with this request? Yes, because some people cannot help being perpetual judgemental assholes. Can't be helped. Is it too much to hope that RATIONAL, reasonable people will honor the request and buzz off if your entries rile them into such a tizzy? I like to think not; and obviously, if me whining in my journal pisses some people off so very much, I think that says something more about THEIR problems than about mine.

Because as such people tend to say, this is just the Internet and what one whiny bimbo says in her journal should not affect them so much. When I'm upset, I very much appreciate what support I get from the people who KNOW or at least UNDERSTAND (or make a good show of trying to) whatever pain or anguish I'm feeling. To ask for the people who cannot or don't want to understand to just buzz off if my journaling makes them want to rake their nails down their faces in frustration isn't to ask much.

The people who continue to harp and rant about it being such a big deal when I ask them to kindly shut up and leave me and my journal alone are the ones with problems, because for some reason they love to punish themselves by continuing to read this thing! I wonder why the proponents of the "It's just the Internet" and "Stop whining and get a life" ideologies can't seem to take their own advice? For people who tell others to get lives and stop whining, they sure do focus a lot of their own lives around others' journals...and they sure do a lot of whining about it.

Really, man, complaining about other people's journals, people you don't even know and could not care less about if you meet them in real life--that is whining, too. I've done it, others have done it, the people who tell me to get a life based on what they read in my JOURNAL have done it. We're alike in THAT aspect, but at least I never went to their journals (if they had any--I'm always REALLY amused by the journalless grousing at those who keep journals to shut up!) and told them to shut up and get a life in their own personal space.

Sometimes I'm seriously tempted to, just to level the playing field. But I can't help it, I like the smug little feeling that comes with being at least ONE little notch above somebody in SOME department, no matter how dinky.

I've read journals that have pissed me off before, and I have countered points brought up in them before, but I will never tell somebody to get a life or stop whining in their personal space. Anybody who does that is fatheaded, self-absorbed (really, what success do they get out of telling other people to stop whining in their OWN journals?--aside from a sense of self-accomplishment?--like if I stopped whining in Skew today THEIR lives would be oh so much better?...maybe they truly complain because my whining hits close to home and they don't want to read that?...hmmm), and asking for failure.

And I can be confident, at least, in this belief, because some of the most popular and respected members on this very site have the exact same disclaimers on their own journals. So I am not the ONLY one with this mindset. I may be the whiniest one, true, but I never held a gun to anybody's head and told them to read.

MY personal journal, at least, is for ME primarily, and secondarily for those who actually DO care about me to keep up on me and offer support when they can, and thirdly and lastly for new readers to stop by and show any interest they might want to. Bad apples will occasionally get through; you'll see bitching when they do. But at least I know that most rational, reasonable people will honor my request to buzz off if something here bothers them...and if they don't honor that request, they're not quite so rational and reasonable as they thought they were.

Because, really...and this here is the part I can just never understand...telling me to shut up in my own journal...c'mon, what purpose does that serve? Will the world, mine or anybody else's, be so very much better the moment I stop whining in here and get a life? (Trust me, BEFORE Skew, my life was about the same as it is now. So whining in here has not been detrimental to my life in any way.) I know these people who tell me to stop whining do NOT really care about my life--that is, their telling me to GET a life serves no greater purpose for my own well-being--because they never offer encouragement and such when I'm HAPPY--they never, EVER stop by to comment on the POSITIVE entries. They only show up when I'm angry or upset. Hmmmm, isn't that in itself a telling little fact? **dwelling on negativity, anyone?--the pot and the kettle?--sitting at a computer digging through someone else's journal, gleefully picking their life apart, sorting out all the bad and focusing on it with a passion, letting others' lack of a life consume their OWN so-called lives?...**

At the very least, if I were to shut up in Skew today, where would their fragile sense of superiority over somebody else--namely, me--go? Who would they have left to judge as having no life, in order to make themselves feel better? ('Cause they'd be blind to really think they're helping ME feel better!) And really, what would THEY have left to whine and pout about?

In the past--at the very first Web community I joined, in fact--I did try to change myself. To make my posts sound deep, to make them sound literate, to make them sound happy and cheerful, etc., just to make others happy. Repeatedly, it failed. No matter WHAT or HOW I posted, they found ways to bitch about it. So, say I, I might as well just post what I want if certain people are going to whine about it anyway. No matter what I put in here or on any other site--somebody will find a way or a reason to complain. So why fake who I am to make them happy? They don't WANT to be happy. Otherwise my personal journal wouldn't upset them so very much. Wah. I know by now that such people LIVE to grouse about others. And that's not much of a life, is it.

I found more hypocrisy today, but instead of bitching at them to shut up in their personal space...even though I was sorely tempted...I'm bitching in my own. And I'm glad that I'm not the only one with the "Buzz off if all you want to do is judge me" disclaimer on my main page.

Even if I don't really keep up on these people's journals anymore, I know for a fact that I'm in very good company. I may have next to no life, but at least I have enough of a life to keep me from bitching at OTHERS to get ones.