Love Your Neighbor

I swear this is my last post on the subject. I promise.

This weekend, I heard many stories about "Community" and how valuable it is, how adorable it is, and how much its cherished. I too agree. Community is a wonderful thing, and something I also experienced here among the Dating Bloggers until last Friday when suddenly I was kicked out without warning and for reasons that had nothing to do with me personally.

There are posts all over about respecting your fellow blogger and blogger family, as if those of us not in the "Community" are somehow lacking.

My community is about love and understanding. Its about freedom. Its supportive in agreement and disagreement. Its a family that can fight and still have each others backs, and welcomes others .. not shuts them out.

This is my community.. 

Below I've written what it is that I believe my community is about.. the standards that I believe a true community wanting to grow should be about.

My Online Ethics:

"I love my fellow onliners as people. I like to think that I treat them with kindness and respect and dignity. (I try.. no one is perfect)

I believe in free speech and will uphold anyone's right to express their opinion or viewpoint even if I don't agree with it. I also reserve the right to publicly disagree with anyone's opinions or viewpoint. 

I do not however believe that disagreement gives anyone the right to harass, name-call, personally insult, or use anyone's private secrets against them (aka hitting below the belt). I reserve the right, and support others rights, to delete or ban or publicly call attention to anyone who is abusing their right to free speech in order to bring down another person or to cause another person strife or pain. 

I will not actively pursue to shut down, harrass, or otherwise hurt another person's livelihood or project. I will not join in anyone elses efforts to do so, nor encourage anyone to do so. I do not agree with bullying in any way, shape, or form.

I try to disagree when I disagree with as much tact and respect as possible. If I find myself continually in disagreement with an individual, I will stop following or stop reading their posts to minimize my contributions of negativity.

I do my best to be as equally free with praise as I am with disapproval, and strive to always find the best in everyone.

I will follow and unfollow people only based on my own experiences/perceptions of their content and behavior. I will not blindly follow anyone elses suggestions or give in to peer pressure. I will not demand that others follow or unfollow anyone or promote or not promote anyone in order to gain or remain in my friendship or following.

I will not ostracize or abandon friends who have shown me love, because they do not always agree with me."

This is my definition of community. This is how I love.

How do you become part of my community? Say Hi. That's a good place to start, and we'll go from there.

Breach Of Trust

After the debacle on Friday, I strongly considered closing shop.

As it turns out there are 30+ bloggers in category Blogger B vs Blogger A.  Of those 30+ bloggers, I found out two of them were people I considered to be good friends.

So that I'd not received an invite or heads up or even consulted at all.. Hurt a lot. 

Not to mention the numbers of other bloggers in their group.. which I didn't know who was or wasn't in the group.. and found myself wondering.. Who do I trust now?

I received several DM's through Twitter of people showing me their support and agreeing with my post on Friday. I wondered if these people DM'd me out of fear that showing public support would adversely affect them. I know I wasn't the only one hurt, distrustful, and a little scared.

I wondered throughout the weekend about "what if I say something negative about someone? will I be next?"  Because lord knows I cannot keep my mouth shut if I think someone's talking a bunch of BS.

Then I found out that some private information that I'd given to people because I trusted them.. had been told to people I didn't authorize..

The smoke coming out of my ears nearly set off the smoke alarm.

The amount of betrayal and whispering behind closed doors that I felt was going on.. I'd not experienced since High School, and is not something I ever want to experience again.

So I spent most of this weekend out.  If I was home, I'd think about my computer.. and this.. and I'd get upset. Being home was stifling.

I hung out with friends I've not seen in months. I drank vodka. I drank beer, and I even tried to kill myself off by eating fries that I was pretty sure I was allergic to.. They were damn good though.. until I got sick.

It honestly wasn't until Sunday night.. after a very fun afternoon of beer drinking.. that I started to relax and put things into perspective.

As much as I'd love to be able to.. I can not control what other people do or say. I have to accept them for their choices, and move on to what is going to make me happy and what I can live with.

I can only be me.

So I'm back. A little worse for wear.. a little less trusting (I know, who'd have thought that possible?).. and with a little bit bigger middle finger.

I've got some juicy stories that I've yet to write up..  So don't worry.. fun fun will be had here again...

How Open Are You?

I was talking to my fellow blogging friend, Jack, this morning and we got onto a conversation about dating and dating bloggers. About how often, dating bloggers have a really hard time dating, as their dates may be a little off-put by being a potential subject for an article.

None of the men I've dated know about this site. Ok, one ex-FB does. He's since disappeared, but I'm not sure one had anything to do with the other.

Jack however is about as open book as you can possibly be.

Jack asked, "How do you tell them?"

To be perfectly honest, I don't think I will. I might. Maybe. If I think its getting serious and omitting it starts to feel a lot like lying. (I have a huge conscience.)  

But for the most part, I'm not going to tell. This blog, while very public, is a safe private place for me. Where I can say what I feel with very little censorship to spare anyone's feelings. It is a combination of self-help, advice, opinion, and personal diary. Not to mention that this blog could very well be used as a "How-to" manual  or cheat-sheet for dating me, as most girl's diaries are.

Just as I would never turn to my boyfriend and say "Here's my dairy. Oh and here's the key. If you ever feel like reading."  I'm also not about to tell them about this site. I am not that kind of crazy and them knowing would really make me anxious.

I've experienced tastes of that anxiety already as a few men have contacted me through this site.. thus already knowing about this blog.. and have been mentioned on the blog. Writing honestly about my feelings, perceptions, and impressions about people while knowing they have access to it.. is extremely anxiety-laden and I found myself not saying things like I would have normally nor being as honest about my feelings.

Could you honestly imagine Mac's face if he'd seen half my posts about him? The guy would have been running for the hills from the psycho-stalker chick who was just a little too much into him.

For the most part, so far, what I've written about people who can read this.. has gone over well.  I actually have a couple friends who, once they saw they were "finally" mentioned, reacted as if they'd finally gotten their name in the newspaper.  My past experiences have not been so lucky (though not as good of friends) as people often get upset because they weren't mentioned enough, mentioned too much, or they feel I was just downright cruel in my portrayal of them. 

Any kind of personal blogging is laden with potholes and backfires.. I just prefer to keep that exposure to a minimum.

What do you think? How open about your dating blog are you?

Blogger's Block

Last night, actually for a couple nights now, I thought of a subject that I needed write up a post.

The conversation with myself went like this:

**thought of some incident that happened while on vacation**

"OMG I totally need to write up a post on that! Wouldn't that be cool? Now how would I start it.. Oh yes..."

And that is all I remember. I remember it being a totally awesome "Must Write" event/idea but I cannot for the life of me remember what it is. Very annoying. Next time I promise you I'll write it down at least.

Then it can at least go like this:

**thought of some incident that happened while on vacation**

"OMG I totally need to write up a post on that! Wouldn't that be cool? Now how would I start it.. Oh yes...Must write this shit down!"

*scribbled note found next morning: "Write on Supercalifragalisticexpialodocious"

To which I will probably be as confounded if not more so than I am right now.

Sometimes I wish I could just stop time when I get the notion to write, so that I can write for as long as I want at whatever time I want without really missing anything. Alas the urge to write always comes at the most inopportune times, like in the middle of an interesting party or while kissing some hot man.