persephonette:

oldtobegin replied to your post:OK HERE IS A THING: hi i haven’t been talking. I…

all i will say about any of this is that i believe making a post on the internet is not necessarily an invitation to dialogue. i guess “why not write it in your journal” but this is sometimes just the place i use for that. i think you feel that too.

i do feel that, and i also think placing value on our contributions to cyberspace and assigning “this is productive”/”this isn’t productive” isn’t fair because who defines productiveness/the value of participation and why—in my experience with talking to men, a lot of them like to put restrictions on how to communicate, and i don’t like that. if i had a dime for every time i’ve heard “well, i thought we were having a civil discussion but i guess not” when they were obviously antagonizing me or prying into sensitive material that i obviously didn’t want to talk about….*

that’s not to say there’s not a difference between being accountable for what you say and not intentionally creating a dialogue, because there is, and that distinction is important

*would also gleefully murder every “devil’s advocate”

this can’t stay in my drafts folder.