Eccentric Flower:199902/closed circles

seven february

closed circles

I am perpetually saying what a small world it is. In the Institvte community in particular, everyone knows everyone. If you worked at BBN, now part of GTE, you also know everyone. That stuff doesn't surprise me anymore. If I want to know about someone local in the technology business, I can ask around my circle of friends and co-workers and generally don't have to talk to more than three people before I get the dirt.

But the online journalling community is another matter entirely, and tonight it scared the hell out of me.

Jette has been trying to warn me about this, in her own way. (Full disclosure: I have known Jette in person for ten years, and was her significant other for three of those. Just so you can't say I'm holding back.) She commented to me just the other day: "These online journallers are way too incestuous. Everyone's always talking about what's going on in everyone else's pages, and then I saw your face in Al's logo, and that just pushed me over the edge."

She was mostly joking - after all, she has to read journals a fair amount just to be able to make the observation, and she keeps one of her own.

But it's true that sometimes it seems that online journallers are the people who read the most other online journals - a self-perpetuating thing. I kinda like that. I like being able to talk to Kymm about what Xeney said, and so forth. Except when it bites me on the derriére, like it did today.

Suffice to say that there was a journal I had never read before today, and when I read it I realized that I knew who this person was. Furthermore I realized that if this person knew who I was, there might be - um - bad blood. Very long story involving two other mutual friends, and not for public consumption.

Now, do I give this person full disclosure now, to avoid nasty surprises later ... and run the risk that I'll never hear from this person again? Or not say anything, get along fine, until the person figures it out and gets upset ... and I never hear from the person again?

Or maybe the situation has completely changed over time, the original feud has cooled - in which case I may do worse by disclosing and opening wounds than by keeping silent.

Urgh.

I am not a big participant in the journalling community. I don't belong to any rings or lists. I didn't think I was going to end up walking any of these political tightropes. But one has found me nonetheless.

I don't like that.

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