Trust

Today I had a conversation with someone who says that you shouldn't trust other people (specifically secrets). It's dangerous, others will be able to exploit you or other bad stuff might happen. His point is valid, but I don't want to be a recluse.

So, I'm going to go through and see just how much I trust others. I'll start with the internet.

I have this blog, it represents a lot of my personal thoughts, feelings, experiences and many ideas that I would not ordinarily share. I also has picture of people and places, however I try to keep the anonymity of others. I trust having this online because most people reading this are either close family and friends or absolute strangers. I also have links to here from Facebook, but I doubt that anyone around me not a close friend or family has read this. If they have, they've kept it to themselves. I trust strangers because they have no effect on my life and vice versa, I don't interact with them. I trust my friends, otherwise they wouldn't be my friends. Ironically, my family are the ones I trust least reading my blog, not that that means much. Classmates, coworkers or aquaintences are the least trsutworthy, those relationships are based on being in the same place and have less to do with interpersonal relations.

My Facebook page is public. It always has been. Anything relating to just me is accessable, I don't see a point in hiding it. My age, address and phone numbers are missing as precautions, but my likes, pictures, theology and cetera are all there. Granted, my page is lacking in applications and quizzes.

I don't have a MySpace page and my page for Microsoft (whatever their Live site is called) is mostly blank, as is my Google profile. I've just never seen a point in filling them out.

There are also many things that I let slip in conversation. I do this mostly intentionally. You could say it's peer pressure, but really, I decide to say it. Often it's something that could mean a lot to certain people, but I usually don't tell the person involved; it just never comes up. It's always something that could be used against me, but I often present it in a cryptic way and usually it means nothing to the listener. For example, there are four people at my school who know about my crush, one of them I told directly, two asked why I was so irritable one day and the last one figured it out and asked me (he propbably didn't expect me to admit it and talk about it so openly).

Then there's stalking and "creeping." Bascially detective work. With a name, address or phone number you can find the other two in the phone book. Many people have this written on their Facebook pages. Lots of people have photos with their house in the background. Whenever people fill out forms they usually have their name, address, phone numbers, parent's signature and cetera. This is the age of information, privacy is just a word.

Well, just something to think about.