My partner is pretty reluctant when it comes to using any kind of social media, though she makes an exception for WhatsApp as this involves closed chats. She is on Facebook but only due to work reasons (and would simply never upload personal photos), and has never used Twitter in her life. (I have an account, but the only time I look at it is when posters such as Nefertiti or ursus draw our attention to interesting threads. And even then the format of the platform ends up driving me half-mad!)
I’ve been posting on various online forums since 2003 or so, and my partner has met (physically) some good people directly due to this, so she’s perfectly aware that online relationships and friendships can be very much a positive thing. But at the same time I think she might be surprised at quite how much what she would term personal information I give away on these boards. Like most of us, I try not to post stuff that is in my view too intrusive or potentially harmful or embarrassing to people I know in “real” life, and I also tend to shy away as much as possible from divulging too many of my own emotional ups and downs or too many details about the work I do. That said, I have posted an enormous number of words on past experiences, both happily nostalgic but sometimes more traumatic, such as the bullying thread I started. I haven’t shown this to my partner, and rather suspect that she might be, to say the least, astonished that I would post such intimacies to a bunch of strangers.
I also suspect that she doesn’t really know quite how much time I spend online, and thinks that I’m doing work stuff on the laptop instead! I’m not trying to deceive her intentionally, but maybe attempting to pretend that I’m not quite as hooked as I am!
(I also read online media much more than she does, though this doesn’t necessarily mean I’m more up to date with news than her. But she far prefers the print media.)
So, I’m interested in how much other members’ partners/wives/husband's/families/etc. are aware of (or could actually give a shit!) what they post here and elsewhere (do they ever read it?) and whether this has at any time caused irritation, resentment or tension of any kind. In my case, this hasn’t happened, probably because I have been able to separate this internet usage from the other stuff I do around the flat.
I’ve been posting on various online forums since 2003 or so, and my partner has met (physically) some good people directly due to this, so she’s perfectly aware that online relationships and friendships can be very much a positive thing. But at the same time I think she might be surprised at quite how much what she would term personal information I give away on these boards. Like most of us, I try not to post stuff that is in my view too intrusive or potentially harmful or embarrassing to people I know in “real” life, and I also tend to shy away as much as possible from divulging too many of my own emotional ups and downs or too many details about the work I do. That said, I have posted an enormous number of words on past experiences, both happily nostalgic but sometimes more traumatic, such as the bullying thread I started. I haven’t shown this to my partner, and rather suspect that she might be, to say the least, astonished that I would post such intimacies to a bunch of strangers.
I also suspect that she doesn’t really know quite how much time I spend online, and thinks that I’m doing work stuff on the laptop instead! I’m not trying to deceive her intentionally, but maybe attempting to pretend that I’m not quite as hooked as I am!
(I also read online media much more than she does, though this doesn’t necessarily mean I’m more up to date with news than her. But she far prefers the print media.)
So, I’m interested in how much other members’ partners/wives/husband's/families/etc. are aware of (or could actually give a shit!) what they post here and elsewhere (do they ever read it?) and whether this has at any time caused irritation, resentment or tension of any kind. In my case, this hasn’t happened, probably because I have been able to separate this internet usage from the other stuff I do around the flat.
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