What is worse: reading someone's diary, or cheating on a current partner with an ex?

You don't have to mention it. You don't *have* to do anything. But just the fact that you know about it *is* going to change your relationship.

xpost: caught doing either!

did you read the diary because you had an inkling she'd done it? because ... ach, fuck. like dan says: call her out.

xposts

"er, no. no, honest."

"well why did you write about it in your diary?"

"you read my diary? how dare you?"

"how dare you shag your ex!"

this is watertight, i think.

Cheating is definitely worse. But still, reading a diary is a broach of trust. But nine times out of ten when someone leaves their diary easy enough to be read, it's kind of like they want to get caught.

Dunno. Sounds pretty horrible, though.

xpost & beans: no but he is around and she is still friends with him, as I am still friends with my ex.

Gear OTM. "Are you OK? You've not seemed yourself since I got back."

I'm surprised noone yet has mentioned that Arab Strap song about reading your girlfriend's diary and finding all about the secret sex life you really didn't want to know about. I think it's called "Love Detective", although I could be wrong.

haha i think that maybe because arab strap are shite!!!! ;)

er xpost

(by 'back' i mean ass)

We slept in this morning and she had to get ready in a hurry - no time for her usual attention to detail - and she ran out the door, slamming it behind her, leaving her keys swinging and jangling. I stayed in bed until I heard the downstairs door shut, then peeked through the blinds and as soon as she was out of sight, I went for the keys. She never tried to make a secret of the box or the fact it was locked or even where she kept it. But as I said at the time - "If you've nothing to hide, why hide it?"

It's one of those wee red cashbox things and she keeps it in a drawer by the bed, under some pictures and books. Every key she has is on the same keyring - it took me a while to find the right one. I don't know, I suppose I've had my doubts for a while. There's been hushed phone-calls virtually every night, her friends stop talking when I come in the room and they look at each other, and I don't know, it's just a feeling. Anyway, I eventually found the right key and it fitted perfectly in. I put the box on top of the bed and opened it up...

There were these pictures of friends and ex's, letters, postcards, doodles, nothing bad - and then I found some sort of sex diary and I went to the latest entry. It explicity detailed a recent adventure up the park with a boy she said she had forgotten about...

And it got worse as it went on. The dates never made sense, there were people I had never even heard of. Eventually I had to stop reading it because I started to feel sick. So I put everything back the way I found it, shut the drawer and phoned you. See, I don't know what to do. I keep having fantasies about leaving her dictaphone under the pillow or following her when she goes to work. I've been lying about where I'm going, just in case I can bump into her.

... sorry, this isn't helpful.

or "I wish my current boyfriend and my ex would have hott manlove, it wd b k-awesome"

(I can imagine mitigating circumstances for shagging an ex, I can't imagine any for reading a diary)

First line, in Swedish, below. Don't think I got this one wrong. Other stuff which followed (which I'm not going to post) is more complicated & so I'm not too sure of the whole situation.

"Hade sex med [name of ex] nu i eftermiddags."

Your other advice, Ken, is useful.

Or what if she made the whole thing up, and wrote it in her diary on purpose because she suspected you might read it while she was away?

I already considered this!

See, I would say it was the other way around.

I'd probably dump someone who read my diary. But I'd DEFINITELY dump someone who cheated on me.

xxpost

have her ex beaten to a bloody pulp

Does being a selfish unfaithful dirtbag really qualify as a mitigating circumstance?

withought knowing any swedish, that sure does look like "had sex with [name of ex] something something afternoon."

It was just lying around, she was at work, and I was too tempted by the thought that there might be nice things written about me inside. I got what I deserved, I suppose.

Translation of: Hade sex med garu-g nu

The word Hade sex med garu-g nu is not in the dictionary!

or any english, apparently! gawd, i can't type lately.

I can imagine forgiving the latter if it was eg a one-off, drunken thing and he was regretful, honest etc. Reading a diary is kind of more...deliberate (obv this does not apply to all cases of cheating).

-- The Lex (alex.macpherso...), August 31st, 2005.

lex, i read your diary all the time.

The dictionary kind of indicates that "nu i eftermiddags" means "now this afternoon".

no, but I would venture that not everyone who cheats is a selfish unfaithful dirtbag.

I would venture that not everyone who cheats is a selfish unfaithful dirtbag.

This is what people like to tell themselves to make themselves feel better in the face of the any guilty feelings thrown at them by their conscience. As far as I'm concerned, if you are in a monogamous relationship and you willingly sleep with someone else, you are culpable. Drugs and alcohol only excuse so much and if you're doing enough of that type of shit that you're making such egregiously bad errors in judgement, you've got an entirely different set of problems that your SO should be deeply concerned about.

generic relationship advice question

You can talk to/with your partner til you're in the face, but if they're not willing to change their actions (and yeah, sleeping with an ex is kind of a big one!) there's no point to it.

Dan Perry OTM throughout, as ever.

And then, if you confronted her and were wrong, you would not only have read her diary behind her back, but falsely accused her of cheating on someone - how would that make you look?

I'm more for shades of grey than Dan's black or white views on trust and cheating in relationships; it would be stupid to throw away a happy, fulfilling relationship just cos of a drunken mistake surely?

yeah LOF if you were betting in bed she wouldn't have gone sleeping around with ex's innit.

I'm not sure how drunk she would've been in the eftermiddags.

How does that work?

"Red or black..."

xxxpost

In this case, "don't go out with a milkman/milkmaid" is urgent and key.

LOF, you need to ask your girlfriend exactly what it means. If she gets all upset about you reading her diary, then, sorry, but fuck it, that's a big wrong priority right there. You need to talk and seriously.

You can't really change a betrayal, though, you can't undo what's been done. So to progress in the relationship IF that's what you want requires forgiveness from the cheatee as well as action on the cheater's part.

That said, I wouldn't even be having the talk. You cheat you get dumped.

everybody makes mistakes. everybody fucks up. cheating isn't the end of the world; these things can be worked out. (and i say this as one who has never cheated on a partner in his life.)

say, for sake of argument, that this happened and your partner is now racked with guilt; she wishes with all her heart she hadn't done it. if you didn't know, you wouldn't be hurt. you might never have found out, and your relationship might have been able to continue blissfully.

obviously, though, you do know - so for both your sake and hers, you need to be totally blunt about it. yes, you read her diary. you can't undo that, though. and you sure as hell can't sweep this under the carpet.

talk to her. it is the only way. perhaps you won't be able to continue after this. but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger :)

This is what people like to tell themselves to make themselves feel better in the face of the any guilty feelings thrown at them by their conscience. As far as I'm concerned, if you are in a monogamous relationship and you willingly sleep with someone else, you are culpable.

Dan you obv. haven't watched Mission: Impossible 2. This girl thief lady fell in love with this spy dude but then she has to go under cover and shag her ex to gain her ex's trust so that the spy dude can uncover the digital camera pictures of this deadly virus so that stop them before the evil ex infects everybody with the virus then charge the world £££££ for the antivirus. that's quite a ligitimate reason!

If you're cavalier enough about your monogamous relationship that cheating isn't a big deal, you should not be in that monogamous relationship as that kind of completely defeats the purpose of the "monogamous" bit.

say, for sake of argument, that this happened and your partner is now racked with guilt; she wishes with all her heart she hadn't done it. if you didn't know, you wouldn't be hurt. you might never have found out, and your relationship might have been able to continue blissfully.

otm.

Take the hit from her for letting curiosity get the better of you, but end the relationship.

absolutely true. but we don't know it isn't a big deal. a lot, i guess, depends on what else is in the diary. if it says: "hahah, i care not a jot for logged-out's feelings", then this girl needs teh dumping. but if it says: "oh god i've ruined the best thing in my life" ... well, like i say, everybody makes mistakes.

sex is animalistic; the capacity to forgive is one of the things that makes us human.

[pauses]

i can't believe i wrote that. that's quite sickeningly twee.

if you didn't read the diary, then by the uncertainty principle: she has both cheated and not cheated on you.

so yeah, perhaps it's you that put the final ball in the net that ends the relationship but she sure set up an open goal to shoot.

(I have dated one - well, a quantum physics student - but he wasn't a particularly paranoid one)

xpost

i would wither instantly if anyone read my diary, which is why i do NOT have a diary online. it's private. i write private things in there so i don't say/do them. sometimes things need to be expelled from the brain but not acted on and that's what diaries are for. not to be read, at least not mine.

you really ought to write it with an invisible pen!

my diary is written to be read. by me.

unless you catch some swedish STD. or if she comes home with lipstick on her collar. uh oh

Dan hundreds of thousands of marriages/relationships make the difficult climb back from adultery/infidelity - it's a huge red flag that the relationship's in trouble but it's usually just that: a warning sign. Naturally: 1) the person who cheated chose the cowardly, easy way of saying "something's gotta change and 2) the betrayed party is right to say "hey fuck you" for as long as it takes 'em to get the feeling out but your scorched-earth take on the question doesn't really allow relationships to be complex, mutable, or dynamic

Oh no that came out wrong...

I agree with this. I still think anyone who thinks reading a diary is worse than fucking an ex has seriously fucked-up priorities.

xpost i'd rather my gf read my diary than to fuck an ex.

I can confirm this as I have been secretly reading ken's diary for months now

(I recognize the universal truth in dan's point but can also appreciate the case-to-case variation that Banana underscores.)

Mrs Vague is only to aware of my apparently fucked-up views on the joys of monogamy, ken. Course that doesn't mean I don't practise it.

What if:

--Your relationship went through a bad spot about a year ago, but has been fantastic since.
--You stupidly read your partner's e-mail (again, looking for good things!) and found out they cheated on you multiple times during this period, despite their insistances to the contrary.
--Your relationship is one of the best things in your life and you don't want to lose it over what might be old & buried transgressions.

1. you have been keeping a diary for ages
2. one day, while bored you went to your ex to have sex with her
3. she told you stuff that your gf told her about what's in your diary
4. now you know that you know your gf has been reading your diary, do you confront her? would you tell her that you've been boning your ex???!!

if you think going to his house to read his diary is a little suspecious, why not get your ex to seduce his ex and then get her to take digital photos of his diary for your reading pleasure!

if you find out it was him who made the move to lure your gf back into his den, then beat the crap out of him (or get your ex to 'discover' his affair with your gf and chop off his rod)

DOES NOT COMPUTE

2. or your going to imagine her being violated in the hallway of a run down loft apartment ala Diane Lane in Unfaithful.

How does THAT red herring taste?

At work, we suspected our web guy was reading our e-mail so we started communicating about quitting and going to work for a competitor. Guess who started asking about our future plans and how much it paid? CAUGHT!

xpost

(i only read about this in his diary and the translation may not have been perfect.. maybe The Strokes helped him)

important - say it in an apologetic voice like 'im sincerely sorry you werent good enough for me'. thats how you win.

You know, "your relationship as you know it is over" is not the exact same thing as "break up; it will never work out". I also take issue with the "it's just a warning sign" mindset precisely because of the word "just"; it trivializes the magnitude of the transgression. It is a transgression that can be overcome, but much like any massively positive event is going to impact your relationship in a way that will turn it into something it wasn't before (see: moving in together, having kids, getting married), a massively negative event will etc etc etc. I would think that that is a blatantly obvious point to make!

Ally is 100% OTM. As per usual.

I say that if you like the way the relationship is going and that she treats you well and is happy, well that's something too. Sex with an ex is not necessarily this transcendental sign that "YOUR LIFE IS OVER AS YOU KNOW IT" (exaggerated to make a point).

Also, I think that reading the diary is bad, but her leaving it out is just as bad.

great plan.

"your relationship as you know it is over"

This is of course assuming they are not the strawmen I already presented, the person who cheats no matter what and the person who is suspicious and snoops no matter what.

Well, I would, but I like to go for the thermonuclear option when I argue (this is also why I try to avoid arguing at all costs).

Why are you bothering, seriously dude?

Work avoidance, duh!

I'll wait a bit to see if she confesses I think

She won't. Not in the context of staying in the relationship, anyway.

Yes! While some people are Passive-Aggressive, I find that in arguments I am Aggressive-EXPLOSIVE.

if you want to salvage it, then you need to talk to her about it, and perhaps figure out the problem. but then again perhaps she could have talked about the problem to start with (if there was a problem) before going shagging her ex's, but who knows. personally i don't think i want to go out with anybody like that, but hey love is weird etc.

Sure Dan - I don't know if I'm really making my position clear. I say "just" a warning sign to steer the ship away from the rather juvenile position "oh, once they've cheated it's over, you'll never be able to have sex without thinking of the other person" etc etc stuff that's come up here. Because

1) if the person who's cheated is genuinely sorry and passionately wants to attend to the broken relationship, and
2) the wounded party is genuinely willing do do the hard work that accompanies this (which! will often end up being really painful for the wounded party, who may have to face how he/she helped make the relationship a place where one party felt like cheating), and
3) everybody agrees not to be high-school drama queens about it,

then the whole situation can be addressed like any other serious adult situation. Anybody who says "once somebody's cheated on me, I can never get over it" is essentially saying "I'm proud to be an emotional cripple." Strong relationships can get over much worse things than cheating: the death of a child, catastrophic financial losses, etc! This doesn't minimize what a wretched thing it is for a person to cheat on his/her partner; FFS, man, I've made a neat living writing songs about how destructive infidelity can be. But to fix it, you have to do a little cutting the problem down to size. That's all I'm saying.

I think this makes sense if the cheater is remorseful about straying from the boundaries of the relationship. It doesn't make sense if the cheater is remorseful about getting caught. Either way, you won't be able to figure out which way the cheater is going to turn unless you confront her/him (which has been my main thesis this entire thread; see for example my first post).

Personally, I think "cutting the problem down to size" makes it easier to ignore. Also relationships are strong in different ways; some can be completely impervious to financial difficulty but completely defenseless against losing a child, etc etc etc, so I'm not sure that I buy into the romantic notion of the "universally-strong, bulletproof relationship" that you are advancing. (One real-life example that is leaping to mind are a couple of personal friends who were compatible in every conceivable way... until they had a child. Now they're getting divorced because the stress of parenthood generated a whole bunch of issues in their relationship that not a single one of their friends saw coming.)

I don't think I'm saying anything particularly shocking or different from the people who are disagreeing with my tone (as they certainly aren't disagreeing with my content).

Absolutely!

*was about to invoke the Cure, then remembered "Push"*

i also think that if the maxim that you shouldnt read diaries because you might find out something unpleasant holds true, then the same goes for "dont write what you dont want people to know", unless you literally lock up your diary. just telling people "dont read it" is never sufficient*. but then people always have wildly differing views of diary-sanctity.

i also think it would be worth examining a bit closer your reasons for reading the diary in the first place. you just wanted to "read nice things" about yourself? hmmmm....i think that this may not be the whole story, and if it is then you have to think about the relationship in a new light. no trust from you, a breach of trust from her, what are you left with. well, what you are left with might be, after all that, worth continuing with. but i dont think its worth continuing with if all parties arent clear about the new parameters of the relationship.

* see "czech dream" advertising campaign: "dont buy", "dont spend", "dont come" etc)

Also, I love how people take these stories at face value. We don't know what really went on here. We don't even know if it's a real "relationship". Why on earth do people bring their relationship problems to a board instead of directly communicating with their partner, like normal people do.

Men are not automatically entitled to know everything and own everything about their partner until trust is established. The OP has been quite sketchy on this account, and is merely trolling with a fiction in order to "intimidate" his victim, who was never in a relationship with him (he's too ugly and vindictive and downright abusive).

Spare me the Scientology (or are you people from some crazy Christian church?) morality play. Your little game is getting tiresome.

You Christian fascist males luvvvv to fantasize that your unwilling S&M victims have "insecurities", don't you?

Take your non-consensual S&M play elsewhere. ILX is for adults who see through this shit.

So, if you're not going to take their advice LOF, you should totally hire CHEATERS (www.cheaters.com) & get on & have a confrontation with your gf while she's caught red-handed!! After the show ends, you can post a profile on their "no cheaters" online personals.

Just a thought, of course.

Context: I've only been going out with this girl for a couple of months, but it is fun, and I like her, and I like having sex with her. I'm not terribly angry at her for doing this, because I could kind of imagine doing the same thing myself (I hope I wouldn't, I mean, but it is possible) and it not meaning anything. I'm a bit hurt and suspicious that she still wants to be with the ex though.
So I don't want to dump her to punish her or anything, but I might want to dump her so I don't feel like a mug. But I'm a bit worried that being afraid of feeling like a mug might make me a mug anyway.

Things are made worse by the fact that she is still very friendly with her ex (and other exes in fact). She has dinner with them and stuff, and hangs around in the same places. I've tolerated this so far, partly cos I'm quite friendly with some of my exes.

I didn't find the diary and think "I must translate this!" I opened it up at the most recent page, whose first line was the one I quoted above, and I thought "Can that really mean what it very much looks like it means?" And it did, so then I translated more.

I will probably wait a while and see if she confesses. Maybe I won't be able to act normal with her, or it'll mess up the sex, and then I'll have to talk about it or something. But I think I'm gonna keep quiet for now.

I was going to suggest this! The one I liked was the boyfriend dumping over a port-a-potty on the dude who was doing his girlfriend.

The one where the host got stabbed was INSANE.

don't read someone's diary if you're not prepared to deal with what you find there : (

i got in a big fight with an ex once after i had read letters he had written and received to/from past girlfriends, and then he read my diary and read about me reading said letters

i did the former once, didn't find out anything of any particular interest (and certainly nothing relevant to me), but i felt squicky afterwards regardless. no desire to ever do it again. got nothing to say about the latter.

In third grade I wrote that I had a "maybe girlfriend," and then I read in my brother's diary that I had a "maybe girlfriend," so I've never really trusted anyone since.

reading the diary is worse

cheating is worse

yeah, it's shitty, so serves me right
xpost

both are shitty - for a long time i kept a diary in code, so that even if someone found it and tried to read it it would be meaningless

rot-13

actually it was a simple letter-substitution code that this guy i had a major crush on in high school "made up" that i later learned was mostly taken from the Mormon Deseret alphabet

I read my sister's diary a long time ago...I was losing her, and we weren't talking, and I wanted to make sure she was okay. I wish I could go back and not read it. I should have trusted her.

cheating is worse

no its not - fuking sum1 isnt necessarily a big deal - tyrna get your hands on someones secret self is a way bigger violation not just a betrayal but an invasion

I got in the habit of expressing myself in the most oblique ways as I knew my parents read my journal.

I used to put macguffins in journals to teach nosy mother a lesson after she read a three-way note where myself and friend A were advising friend B what to do in a 'family planning' situation. She'd struggle under the weight of her knowledge, trying not to mention the fake incident and then finally exploding with I READ WHAT YOU DID, to which the only sane teenaged answer is one of those baleful looks followed by 'are you finished yelling yet? Because PSYCH!' She either stopped reading or stopped believing but definitely stopped yelling.

There are so many wrong opinions on this thread. If you leave your diary lying around, you want to the other to read is a bunch of crap. No, it's not. If you would like to read it, ASK before you open the diary. S/he'll probably say no. You can't interpret the diary correctly anyway. People write *stupid shit* in it. They can do a no holds barred approach cause they assume that noone's reading it. It's a way of trying to imagine how something could be for example and then see how they like it. Also, immediately kicking someone to the curb after adultry is just sad. You want to throw a relationship away because someone made a mistake? I would be extremely saddened and angry if I found out my husband fooled around, but I would hope we could work it out. You have to know why s/he fooled around. Maybe something is wrong with the relationship, so you have to find out the cause. Maybe it can be solved.

xp - lamp - i've had my diary read and i've been cheated on, and the cheating hurt the worst. but that's just me.

if one suspects a cheating mate, not out of paranoia but because of some soild clues, how does one go about finding the truth? in other words, is snooping ever justified??

well, it's not easy, but the best way is just to have a talk with them.

well, i think most people will deny unless some sort of "proof" is shown (this was my experience).

do you mean, are you justified in reading your partner's diary or private correspondence if you have evidence to believe they are cheating? Justified or not - and it really doesn't matter, because individual feelings and beliefs are stronger than hypothetical ethics - don't do it.

did anyone find out what happened with LOF in the end?

http://theozzone.com/images/Records/tv_tributes/arrested_development/recurring_gene_parmesan_c.jpg

^^ better idea, rent an animal costume and follow your partner through the streets

so, sarahel, do you just stew in your suspicions?

I liked how bathetic the LOF saga turned out in the end - everybody got all moralistic and upright, and then in the end LOF was just like "she may have cheated on me but I like fucking her so hey! s'all good"

It is never justified to read someone's diary. Even if you know "for sure" the person cheated. You are reading his/her thoughts and could find other things that should be kept secret.

kind of a lose-lose for the one cheated upon

i discovered a bf was cheating by accidentally walking in on him with another woman, though i had suspected something was going on between the two of them. The best course of action, as someone suggested upthread, is to discuss it with your partner. You don't necessarily have to accuse him/her of the act, maybe talk about the signs/symptoms.

it's a tough question - would you rather risk being a fool or being a sociopath (to put the options in their least favorable characterizations)?

wtf cheating is next level worse.

that sounds reasonable if you think people will be upfront about cheating, my experience tells me that it is not the case in a majority of situations
xpost

I've had (and thrown away) the password to my gf's e-mail before; I figure let sleeping dogs lie. she gives me my privacy too.

gerneral snooping/fishing expeditions are never justified

when i was the one doing the cheating, i thoroughly denied it, even when asked point blank (i was 20 years old at the time). i ended up dumping the guy i was cheating on not long afterwards because it made me feel totally despicable.

the idiot/sociopath question remains though.

i got nothing tbh

nothing, as in you read the person's diary but there was no evidence?

oh no, i got evedence

nothing wrt is it worth it/is it justified/are you better off etc....

evidence

other evidence or evidence from reading the diary?

suspicions based on circumstantial evidence confirmed by diary

is this someone you want to stay in a relationship with, or would you be better off breaking up?

this happened ages ago, but i was thinking about her today for some reason and what happened. i chose not to break it off but things were never the same, and it ended

hah! and i'd almost forgotten the walking-in-on-them incident. he was either spanking her with a hairbrush or a fencing foil, but i can't remember anymore.

poll

Thing is that the partner can be cool with an affair

Oh damn that sounds wickedly weird;

it's okay nathalie, we've seen plenty of movies.

Oh I could never be. But y'know it's wrong to assume that adultry is always frowned upon.

Personally I could never fuck around. It has crossed my mind (in previous relationship) but even the mere thought felt filthy.

xxp - i think i witnessed the fencing foil actually. he told me later about the first incident where her eyes "lit up" at the prospect of being spanked with the hairbrush, and that's how the affair began.

Snooping I wouldn't mind (both sides). I can understand what compels someone: insecurity, paranoia and simply love. You don't want to lose the other. I can totally forgive that. Totally. If you don't want anyone to know your thoughts, I say keep'em in your "brane"

but even the mere thought felt filthy.

definitely, i agree. it's something i could never do again.

Don't keep a diary unless you're prepared for someone to read it some day.

It's OK to read someone's diary... AFTER THEY'RE DEAD.

what if you were the one who killed them?

There may be some legal complications with that.

What is worse, reading someone's diary or murder?

TS: killing someone because it's only okay to read their diary after they're dead vs. not flushing the toilet

3. Top ten diary killers on Pitchfork

people who don't flush their dead spouse's diary down the toilet during the night are disgusting savages imo

My ex read my diary once and also cheated on my with my best friend. I felt more violated upon finding out about the diary thing tbh but both are pretty bad.

No, best friend thing is worse because they haven't had to read your diary to know what you think about your relationship.

um, I don't think ENBB needs advice on what to feel more violated about!

Yeah!

don't people usually read other people's diaries to find out if they're cheating on them?

I think the cheating is worse but that's partly because my own diary is pretty boring, it's mainly just a lot of neurosis that anyone close to me is probably unfortunate enough to know well anyway.

don't people usually read other people's diaries to find out if they're cheating on them?

Yeah, I mean, is there a case for, at some point, not banging your head against the wall with paranoia and suspicion and just finding out what's what?

If only Mrs. Larry Craig had read her husband's diary...

I'd be so flattered if someone read my diary. About ten years ago, reading my sister's diary, I discovered that she'd read my diary, stopping to remark on her mild horror at my sexual encounter with a trick.

Yeah, I mean, is there a case for, at some point, not banging your head against the wall with paranoia and suspicion and just finding out what's what?

Hmmmm, no. If you're in that situation just ask the person.

I my case my ex read mine because I'd left it lying around and he thought it was a book of fiction writing. In any even I was not cheating nor did he suspect that I was.

I've never been a cheater and certainly don't plan on it, but I'd imagine that if I were I certainly wouldn't write my activities down in a book somewhere in the house I share with my partner!

Diarising always struck me as an unhealthy degree of narcissism.

Yeah, but a lot of things that're really important to people strike me exactly the same way. I try to rein myself in about that stuff b/c being my own biggest hobby makes me so unhappy in the long run, but I'm sure I do it too.

Obsessive interest in one's diet and/or physical condition, for instance.

what is worse, diary nazis or cheating nazis?

Funnily enough, I always found that actually keeping a diary helped me to be less narcissistic - i.e. having a place to talk about ME ME ME MY THOUGHTS MY PROBLEMS all the time whenever I wanted, and working them out there, makes me less likely to bring them up in inappropriate places.

i didn't know this many people wrote diaries!

i try every now and again. pretty boring imo.

the one and only diary i kept with any regularity (couple entries a month, sporadically, for my freshman year of college) has, i was horrified to discover, found a place on the bookshelf of the 'library' of a lodge i used to work at in NH

i got a drunken voicemail like 2-3 years after graduating from some old friends, wherein they read some particularly awful, emo passages.

"i am listening to harry connick, jr, and LOVING it"

now if you will excuse me, i am going to go suicide

Oh I have no problem with diary keeping, I've made more that a few aborted attempts at keeping one myself, I just really struggle with "interesting" things to say about myself.

harry connock, huh. ouch dude.

i am listening to harry connick jr. and loving it.

no one should be ashamed to listen to harry!

OMG Evanston....

Btw this diary incident was when I was around 21 and I haven't kept a paper one since then even though I think it can be really therapeutic.

A password-protected Word doc is a good place if you want to write something that will remain unread, even if you end up on a desert island.

I like keeping a journal. I assume someone will read it at some point.

OMG Evanston....

What about it?

my dad burned all of his journals a few years ago, which bums me out - hed kept them since he was 18, prob 35 of them or so.

he is a weird private man, so im not exactly shocked

both are perfectly acceptable in my book

A password-protected Word doc is a good place if you want to write something that will remain unread, even if you end up on a desert island.

http://www.rixler.com/word_password_recovery.htm

http://mediakey.dk/~cc/crack-or-recover-read-only-password-protected-word-document/comment-page-1/

http://www.crackpassword.com/products/prs/integpack/office/

etc etc

oh to answer the initial thread question cheating is about a billion times worse

If they're that desperate to break the password and read it, then fair game to them.

ps cheating is much worse than diary reading

Both are pretty jerky, though.

i read an exboyfriends letters to his exgirlfriend once. he got REAL PISSED. i was 19 at the time, though - i would never do that now.

Apparently HI DERE has done some research into hacking into Word doc diaries.

yeah, it's called "type 'crack passwords on word documents' into a Google search"

I agree that both can be bad and damaging things to do, but cheating in a relationship seems like quite a different level of wrongness to diary reading, even considering the wider implications of breaching trust and privacy of the latter act.

I think the implications of breaching trust when cheating on someone are much much much worse than the implications of breaching trust when reading someone's diary!

Defensive? It was just funny how quickly you threw up several different options!

haha but that was my whole point! ("if you think a password on a Word document is going to protect you, you should really think again")

Agreed, I don't think I would have trusted that option.

This is obviously much more secure:

http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/33850000/33854834.JPG

It even has the key handily attached to it with a ribbon for easy access!

one of the main GIS results for "silly diary":

http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/faq/images/geoduck.jpg

otm, I write all of my most private thoughts on geoducks which I then release into the wild

OK, OK, so much for the secure doc. Back to the drawing board.

if yr partner is going to the lengths to download some shit to hack your diary, then the solution is gtfo that relationship.

I think the implications of breaching trust when cheating on someone are much much much worse than the implications of breaching trust when reading someone's diary!

how - u sleep w/sum1 the dmg is to the relationship but reading sum1's diary dmgs the relationship & their privacy - sleeping around is pretty natural it happens alla time basic and so what u break up the relationship is done any dmg is in the past. sum1 invades yr privacy they no all that shit abt u to the end of time u cant get it back even if u break up~~

also i mean cmon most of the time u fuk around its just selfish no intent to wound but fukken tossing their office tryna hack word docs - thats dastardly

A little like happening to see an e-mail window open vs. figuring out a password.

uh not sure how many people would buy this excuse: "sleeping around is pretty natural it happens alla time"

"I used to put macguffins in journals to teach nosy mother a lesson"

There was an episode of Leave it to Beaver where the beav wrote some fabulist stuff about dealing crack and murdering hobos down by canal (or some such 1960s TV equivalent) and June & Ward were hemming and hawing the whole episode after they snooped, and I thought it would be an awesome trick to do, but never did, but you did it, so kudos to you!

how - u sleep w/sum1 the dmg is to the relationship but reading sum1's diary dmgs the relationship & their privacy - sleeping around is pretty natural it happens alla time basic and so what u break up the relationship is done any dmg is in the past. sum1 invades yr privacy they no all that shit abt u to the end of time u cant get it back even if u break up~~

also i mean cmon most of the time u fuk around its just selfish no intent to wound but fukken tossing their office tryna hack word docs - thats dastardly

This is, without a doubt, the dumbest fucking thing I have ever read.

so congrats, I guess

considering u mod ilm it *is* a real accomplishment

not loving lamp's ?new? textile postings

so what u break up the relationship is done any dmg is in the past

a+

102 dmg points to relationship

how - u sleep w/sum1 the dmg is to the relationship but reading sum1's diary dmgs the relationship & their privacy - sleeping around is pretty natural it happens alla time basic and so what u break up the relationship is done any dmg is in the past. sum1 invades yr privacy they no all that shit abt u to the end of time u cant get it back even if u break up~~

also i mean cmon most of the time u fuk around its just selfish no intent to wound but fukken tossing their office tryna hack word docs - thats dastardly

This is, without a doubt, the dumbest fucking thing I have ever read.

― The Book of Outhere (HI DERE), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 1:13 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

loooooooooooooooooool

mostly b/c it took me 2 attempts to read the post past "sum1's diary dmgs"

murda is pretty natural it happens alla time basic and so what u killem the deed is done any dmg is in the past. sum1 invades yr privacy they no all that shit abt u to the end of time u cant get it back less u killem.

Okay now you sound like the little woodland creatures in the Mossflower books.

tbh i agree with lamp--i wd be a lot sadder if sum1 invaded my privacy. if sum1 sleeps around u can just dump em~~

sum1 invaded my sleep privacy.

aint ez 2 fill that cankle sized hole in ilx

lol @ ilm dbags who spend all day ejaculating slimy verbiage on pitchfork threads whining abt how i lvl - fuk u

particularly if u disagree

ur not ice cram u realze

idk you don't get stds from someone invading your privacy

surely channeling cankles

lamp seems like ur in a bad mood--did sum1 dmg u?

dammit the REDWALL books laurel (staples of my youth!)

sleepin w/sum1 = y u braek hart?
invadin yr privacy = y u so nozy?

The abbreviation LVL may represent:

* the ISO 4217 code for Latvian lats, the currency of Latvia
* Level
* LVL (band), an industrial/electronic band from New York
* Laval, Quebec, a city in Quebec, Canada
* Laminated veneer lumber
* Low velocity layer, a term in seismic refraction statics determination

i think lamp was talkin abt makin money in latvia

usin abbrv8ns 4 intrnt?!?? omg ur so cankles

/dumb

you guys are really making a lot out of this

What, you have something better to do?

u sleep w/sum1 the dmg is to the relationship
http://sum1.onreact.com/bilder//2007/05/nu-project-matt-blum-bald-woman.jpg

i 4 1 m gld 4 sum1 lik lmp 2 lvl w/ me

http://inside224a.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/text_message.jpg

never understood keeping a diary - seems kinda pathological/neurotic. also what's the point of writing something down if you don't want anyone to ever read it.

like, the whole point of writing is communication - so it strikes me as sorta nuts to intend to only have a dialogue with yourself. do people who keep diaries really go back and read entries from years ago and whatno?

is the whole point of writing really communication?

is that the *whole* point? i would never keep one but people say it helps them think baout stuff. whatever works.

xp

what is communication

it's the only way you can speak for yourself after you die. aside from ghosting.

I ain't fraid of no ghost.

seems totally narcissistic to obsess about WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK OF ME after your dead? not to mention totally irrational. who gives a shit.

alive-me cares a lot! ppl need to know who i was crushing on and what band logos i thought were tight when i was 14, it explains my adult life in a way the movie about my life never could.

that was about 5% serious. 50% serious answer: perhaps a shining legacy will provide a shining example for shiny future offspring.

and that legacy would be lovingly detailed by me

Actually if you're not in the breeding racket, it's perfectly reasonable to think about what else you'll leave behind (and with so many writers on ILX ,why is this even an issue, I've no idea).

what, so yr precocious niece can find it in the attic some day and be struck by yr brilliance? no thanks.

my ex (the one whose letters i read) actually made copies of letters he wrote people to preserve them for posterity, so that a future editor or biographer could more easily compile and publish his complete correspendence.

95% serious, i think diary keeping at a certain point growing up provides a forum for personal introspection that allows you to articulate an identity distinct from your parents. but beyond a certain age and outside nautical contexts, super secret journals don't do it for me personally

xpost I was talking about those of us with a record of publication :/ but memoirs as time capsules are always cool.

the illusion that someone out there in the future might give a shit is a substitution for the illusion that someone out there in the present might give a shit

the breeding racket

ooh can we rename the parenting board/threads plz

the illusion that someone out there in the future might give a shit is a substitution for the illusion that someone out there in the present might give a shit

^^^this

xp - it's a comforting thought for those who know no one at present gives a shit, it's kinda like believing in god.

sry suzy, that was as general comment- i realise it looked like it was addressed to your post but it wasn't :)

my ex used to grab my phone and read my texts

she also frequently searched my chatlogs & email archives for her own name if i happened to leave my gmail open on my computer

would be mortified by the thought of a young hip relative getting an emo missive from my teenage diaries.

it's a comforting thought for those who know no one at present gives a shit, it's kinda like believing in god.

― Althus (sarahel), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 7:34 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

otmfm

i agree! placebos work!

I keep a journal, though I write in it much less frequently than I used to. I think diaries/journals can be useful for when you just need to work through some thoughts, either emotional or intellectual, and give yourself some clarity and perspective. One reason I don't journal as much anymore is because I don't often find myself in these situations anymore, or else I have other outlets. Lots of stuff I post on ILX, for instance, would've originally gone in a notebook. The main reason I still do keep a journal, though, is because I enjoy writing for its own sake, and there's something satisfying about sitting down and just seeing where your thoughts take you.

That said, I do like going back and reading what I've written in the past. Maybe that's narcissistic, but I like reconnecting with my past self every once in a while, for the same reason I like going to school reunions.

journaling or whatever you like to call it certainly has a place in some ppl's mental health and / or creative processes! i'm not in the practice of it myself (due to a total lack of privacy as a kid -- my dad would regularly grab my personal notebooks thoughtlessly if he needed a piece of paper or something) but i don't see the need to shit all over the idea of keeping a diary.

and yeah, it can be valuable supplement to memory! i don't understand these challops.

sorry not trying to be challopsy

diaries strike me as antiquated is all - like things that were useful as historical documents pre-printing press, electronic media, etc.

next thing you'll be saying it we need an electronic device that would replace books. let's give it a catchy name like "incinerate"

this is all about what kind of person you are--self regarding interior people are going to get diary keeping, non-reflective types (i count myself as one of these) really arent

next thing you'll be saying it we need an electronic device that would replace books. let's give it a catchy name like "incinerate"

haha I'm cool in principle with one media replacing another, but I tend to be one of those who bemoans what gets lost in the switchover (ie, records that never got released on CD, books that won't get transferred to electronic devices, etc.)

i am a pretty interior/reflective person but just wouldn't be able to get into this, partly due to lack of privacy as a kid like elmo said. but i can definitely see the value. you can even make one on your electronic device!

given the choice, I'd rather read diaries completely unintended for public consumption than the modern equivalents which seem geared to it.
(e.g. kurt cobain's diary vs. courtney's blog)

just to be clear I only brought up the pre-printing press/electronic media angle insofar as that pertains to diaries as HISTORICAL documents. Like, it might be useful for someone in, say, the Roman Empire to keep a diary, because shit didn't last forever back then and not everybody could write/preserve their thoughts and it was hard to tell what would last through the ages and what wouldn't. So preserving something for posterity made sense. But now every little teeny tiny thing is fucking documented and catalogued and preserved, removing that particular rationale for keeping a diary. I don't care about digital vs. analog media or whatever, that's not the point.

yeah, i really feel old when i see what younger people will publish online. i'll feel slightly embarrassed about stuff i wrote in a private journal as a teenager, and that's for an audience of one.

But now every little teeny tiny thing is fucking documented and catalogued and preserved, removing that particular rationale for keeping a diary.

who is doing this for the particulars of your life if you don't do it? this argt is dumb. it's not like the romans knew what they didn't have. fuck, no ipod! better write about these gallic wars going on or w/e.

my ex used to grab my phone and read my texts

she also frequently searched my chatlogs & email archives for her own name if i happened to leave my gmail open on my computer

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 2:36 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this would make me go apoplectic

fuck, no ipod! better write about these gallic wars going on or w/e.

lololol

my point was that now we don't need to glean what's going on in history from the particulars of anyone's life, since current events are pretty well documented in all their minutiae at this point.

your ex is an ex for good reason.

the particulars of most people's lives don't really matter when it comes to posterity, hate to break it to ya

x-post

they don't? i remember when the lewinsky scandal was trailing off, and the starr report included all these emails btw clinton and That Woman, and they included all this cultural minutiae about movies and songs and The Gap and other 90s ephemera. there was a historians roundtable on pbs and someone said 'man, we'd kill to know this kind of stuff about lincoln now'

this is a long winded way of saying, the "particulars of most people's lives" does matter to posterity! it IS posterity, isn't it?

the president and blowjob-giver /= most people

that is to say, the key phrase in your quote is "ABOUT LINCOLN"

blowjob-giver /= most people

i know, it's tragic

what a disaster for blowjobs

but knowing things about the particulars of ordinary people's lives at that time gives us a context in which to understand people like Lincoln, surely?

honestly, my ex copied his letters for posterity because he fancied himself a clever guy and thought he'd be a celebrated writer someday

but knowing things about the particulars of ordinary people's lives at that time gives us a context in which to understand people like Lincoln, surely?

do you really think in this particular day and age that diaries are going to be the sole source of this kind of crucial historical information gtfo

the point is that you as diary keeper don't know what it is that will be important or noteworthy to future readers, if it is. we'd love 'daily life' stuff about all past eras, and that's exactly what we don't have and has to be reconstructed by conjecture. this idea that people don't need to document themselves because... why? blogs? lots of media? whereas they did before, doesn't make sense -- people in the past didn't self-document out of some lack of other media or a desperate wish to broadcast themselves into the future. they just did it, like people now do it. i mean, the two aren't even related really.

people in the past didn't self-document out of some lack of other media or a desperate wish to broadcast themselves into the future

oh I think you're wrong about this

this would make me go apoplectic

― butt sound insanity (gbx), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:30 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

it did

I'm just sayin, you keep a diary nowadays don't pretend like you're doing it for posterity or for subsequent generations. You're doing it for yourself. What that says about you, hey I dunno...

if you want to come up with reasons to dislike people, okay, but that seems like a dumb one to me

I didn't say I disliked anybody, just that I don't understand the point of keeping a diary in this day and age

cuz really what do I care how other people spend their time by themselves. do whatever you like!

I feel like in the past, keeping a journal has kept me from letting my anxieties and neuroses explode onto everyone around me, because it's like somebody's listening to my concerns (but it turns out that person is me!). So I definitely see the practice of writing as a useful release, rather than the importance of the record itself. I think one of the reasons I've stopped is that the internet is full of places for me to go on at whatever length I feel like, but I've never reached the same level of candidness because there's always the possibility that somewhere out there, somebody's reading it.

but I've never reached the same level of candidness because there's always the possibility that somewhere out there, somebody's reading it.

smart woman!

i just don't get the "in this day and age" thing - in the past, sure, there were bureaucratic diary-keepers recording for later generations in their posts and people who thought they were going to be celebrated writers someday, but there were also a bunch of people who just wrote diaries for themselves, like people just write diaries for themselves now.

and the stuff that's useful to us from those bureaucratic diaries often isn't what they were intentionally recording "for posterity" -- a friend of mine's been using 9th-12th century diaries to get climate change information.

i like the idea of keeping a diary but i'm incapable of doing it-- every time i try i get bored halfway through an entry, or forget to write again, or find myself unbearable and give up.

and the stuff that's useful to us from those bureaucratic diaries often isn't what they were intentionally recording "for posterity

my "in this day and age" point is that this stuff you refer to is now widely available and recorded in other, non-diary formats.

and my point is that just as they couldn't predict what posterity would want to find out from their diaries, we can't predict what use current diaries might have to our own posterity.

while that's true, but I have a hard time believing anyone's private diaries contain unique, crucial information that will be totally unavailable from other diligently archived and exhaustively comprehensive sources

well, depends how postmodern you want to be about your question i guess. maybe sometimes the individual non-expert opinion will be wanted.

9th-12th century diaries to get climate change information

zoiks, this is awesome (though I'm a little curious about the form said diaries took and where they're from, given the obsession in Europe at that time to turn any pieces of paper/vellum into more painstakingly illuminated copies of the Bible, with anything else clearly being a terrible waste. I'd much rather read a millennium-old diary, obv.)

maybe sometimes the individual non-expert opinion will be wanted.

don't worry, there's plenty of those too. there's this thing called the internet...

If I thought someone mistrusted me enough they would consider reading my letters/diaries/email (and you can kind of tell when things get to that point) you can bet your bippy I'd put maguffins in there, as Suzy mentioned. Call me malicious or whatever, I dont care really. Who's to say thats not what happened to the original logged out OP? I mean who would write something as bland and straightforward as "had sex with [blah] this afternoon" in a diary anyway? Yeesh, its not minutes from a meeting.

Meh maybe thats just me though.

Maybe could be a GTD enthusiast?

Haha.

I'm just sayin, you keep a diary nowadays don't pretend like you're doing it for posterity or for subsequent generations. You're doing it for yourself. What that says about you, hey I dunno...

Mormon church it's a freaking commandment to keep a diary SO your posterity can read it. Mainly read your testimony that the church is true and awesome! So it's this bittersweet lol looking back at journals of mine from age 15 where I was first getting held underwater by depression, and five pages of suicidal moaning ends with "but at least I know the church is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of god!"

If I ever do a diary now it's in the form of a wordless comic about my day. Happens maybe 3x a year.

not quite a diary, but the chris ware sketchbooks are a lot more interesting than the acme novelty stuff that eventually comes out of them.

It is a very, very weird feeling, feeling you have to cover up parts of your inner life so as not to shock your future great-great0grandchildren.

I used to keep an oldschool diary, but in actual fact, amusingly, it *did* get me into trouble (but the guy was already snoooping through all my shit and being an asswipe and I wasnt cheating on him.. UNTIL all that started happening and pissed me off, but long story). Then I sort of began to write journalistic nonfiction instead - observational stuff, notes for short stories, trying to hone my craft (or kid myself I was).; Then I got a livejournal and then it all got kind of boring to bother with.

. So to the Privy Seal, where I signed a deadly number of pardons, which do trouble me to get nothing by. Home by water, and there was much pleased to see that my little room is likely to come to be finished soon. I fell a-reading Fuller’s History of Abbys, and my wife in Great Cyrus till twelve at night, and so to bed.

Trayce, it totally worked - and my mom also learned what is 'unreliable narrator' - but I also pointed out that she probably didn't want me digging through HER stuff. School had already toughened me: sometimes the posse of evil roach-clip loser girls in my jr. high would lift a journal or some other work in progress and I'd be like 'oh I was waiting for the staged performance whoops I forgot none of you can actually read, were you stealing my shit to learn?'

I wish I'd thought to do it earlier in my life where it may have at least had some entertainment value!

lolz Abbott you are the bestest.

things I have learned about the Mormon Church today: the Deseret Alphabet, diary-keeping requirements

Yes, Abbott rocks!

:O

:D