Yes and yes. Also:
Hah, no. First of all, that honor goes to Hubski, and second of all, I don't see Hubski goin anywhere. Knock on wood. The Multiple Expressive section is terrifying. You separate these things for a reason. I don't want my pervy (nonexistent) tumblr persona mixed with my Linkedin persona - what the fuck is the point in that?Facebook today doesn’t resemble a thriving, living metropolis – it’s more of a friendly neighborhood bar. For that reason, FB will face its cruel destiny of simply fading away.
That part made my nope buzzer go off every other sentence. I get what he's trying to say, as I do believe you can only truly know someone when you get the full picture. But what he proposes means that I would lose all control over who gets to see the real me. He's trying -I think- to make a plea for ruthless honesty on social networks, to get rid of the fakeness that every big social network is behind. Who the hell wants everyone to know everything?The Multiple Expressive section is terrifying. You separate these things for a reason. I don't want my pervy (nonexistent) tumblr persona mixed with my Linkedin persona - what the fuck is the point in that?
It's the thing that's missing in most of these discussions - locks exist to keep out the polite. There's a reason that hunting up every bit of information publicly available about someone is called "stalking." It's considered rude, and is a social faux pas. Just because you can find out everything about someone doesn't mean you should and just because you've disclosed that information somewhere doesn't mean you should disclose it everywhere.
Disclosure should come at one's own pace. If you intrude upon someone's privacy and find out something they haven't told you and disclose that information to them, you steal their opportunity to tell you on their own time and in their own terms. And if it's an important thing and if you're been prying in their private documents or social media or whatever, you're going to break a trust that may not ever recover. Maybe sometimes it's warranted - like the cheating spouse who gets found out. But I think there are a lot of very personal experiences that someone can just not be ready to share yet, and when you pry to find out that information you totally rip from them the ability to tell you when they are comfortable with what's happened. I routinely take a week or more to socialize to people in my life when my significant other and I have broken up. (Historically, anyway.) I resent the idea that I am obligated to tell anyone anything. I tell someone something because I want them to know. No one is privileged to any knowledge of my life. (If I were married the situation would be different. When you enter into certain bonds and create a life together I think you kind of have to share certain things, especially as they impact your life together.) (This is all theoretical, this bit down here.)
And it's important that the level of vigilance reflects the risks of the situation. Casual meeting with a mutual acquaintance? Leave them their privacy. misadventures on match.com? Well... Suffice it to say that my first experience with online dating was a bust.. My second experience was with a girl who had a very attractive picture but was quite coy about personal details. Which made it a challenge. She didn't realize that calling from her father's land line gave me her last name. her email address gave me the school she was currently going to. First name, last name, local papers to scan gave me the revelation that she wasn't taking the year off to do an internship, she'd been put on academic probation for a year for, i shit you not, carving up her own neck with an X-Acto knife to give credo to the false rape charges she leveled against a crush who didn't want to date her. Not something that was likely to come up in casual discussion, but certainly something I was glad to know. I had the aforementioned Cosmic Bargain, though, so I went on the date. (a very well-documented date) Long story short - pictures were from high school, girl was from Hoth, ended up with the ugliest girl at the Spaghetti Factory talking about Ren Fair. Never even had to throw the "yeah, don't want to date you because of the rapey knifey thing" was able to leave it at "yeah, not giving you a ride to Renfair in Tukwila tomorrow. Or ever." Would I have had to disclose the fact that I'd stalked her secret at some point? Sure. And back when she was an attractive abstraction, I was quite conflicted about it. But since it never got that far, the faux pas was never practically committed.
There isn't a single person in my life who has the "full picture" of my existence. It's something I've thought about before: my life is like a pie or a pizza or a pie graph. Everyone gets a slice. Some people get bigger slices, some people get overlapping slices, some people get just a little. But no one gets it all. I guess in that case no one truly knows me - by your definition - but I'm hard put to say if that is a bad thing.I do believe you can only truly know someone when you get the full picture
I know the feeling. I've always lived that way, as well. Part of it is that I spend my time divided between nerds and jocks, like I'm stuck in an 80s movie. I try to hide my jock side from my nerd friends and rarely reveal my nerdy side to my jock friends. It's not dishonest; it's simply not mixing interests to disinterested people. Revealing the whole picture is not so easy when context often dictates the parts to be revealed. One thing that I'm finding refreshing about my fiancee is that I don't find it difficult to not wear a zillion masks. That is, I don't feel like any side of me is less interesting or more offensive than any other. It's a remarkably good feeling, frankly, and not something I've ever really felt with any significant other. That said, "the full picture" still may not be feasible, given that no one can crawl inside anyone else's head. A little faith is necessary.
Well, it is not physically possible to fully understand someone, as you can never know every memory and influence on someone. People are just too complex to fully understand them. I did mean something more along the lines of your description of not-wearing-masks. The only reasons I can think of for fully knowing someone, is to appreciate them and to communicate with them better. Those two factors don't necessarily require you to know everything about someone. A generous amount will do. Maybe it's better to remove the past from the equation. The full picture I seek in people is the unrestrained existence of a person. The way they act (or more literally, how they don't act but are) around me, without masks. So let me rephrase: I think I only truly know someone when they are comfortable enough to show their unmasked self, which I am familiar with. Just like you and your SO. I am grateful to have people around me who fit that criteria. Circles of friends where I can just be my true self. I feel like I have the full picture of those people, as I understand how they think because I've had plenty of conversations with their unmasked self. _refugee_, isn't that truly knowing someone? Pursuing perfectly knowing someone is futile, after all.
The not-wearing-masks bit feel more clear. I have always viewed it more of a matter of modulating one's personality to fit the appropriate occasion than necessarily wearing a mask, though. There are times you are truly wearing a mask - when you are not presenting yourself truly at all - and other times you are simply a less (something) version of you - less exuberant, less foul-mouthed, less inebriated, whatever. I think we are different people. Who I am to my parents isn't who I'd be to a partner and it doesn't necessarily have to do with wearing a mask. I certainly have friends I can be very weird around and I appreciate that and they are my favorite friends. I get that idea of "not being constrained." But who you are has as much to do with your ability to modulate your personality (otherwise you become obnoxious in the wrong situation) as who you are when you don't modulate it. Are you unable to control your emotions? Do you control them too much? Do you sometimes rage like Alec Baldwin or do you react by not reacting? I don't know. Just theories.