The Guise of Privacy
Privacy has always been a big deal to me, it is one of my most heavily cherish values. My line of work has further exposed the importance of privacy and my employer has a reputation for being tight-lipped with stringent rules about what can expose about our work lives. Thus, over the past two years, we have been a match made in Heaven. I remember when I started working here, one of the first things I did was change social handles to something other than my name to prevent co-workers from finding my page. Although I have always kept a pretty clean social media presence, there are some notable exceptions. I made the executive decision that while I didn’t want co-workers to necessarily find my social media profiles, I wanted to have different levels of protection. Instagram became the face of my social media presence and I ensure that it’s appropriate for anyone to view. My account is public and even linked on this site. Presently, I have nobody blocked and I’m aware most of my family follows me there so I typically refrain from vulgarity and explicit content. There’s a brand I strive to maintain on there. My Snapchat is much more intimate and I’m much more selective about who I allow to follow me. Twitter is my favorite app and since I locked my account about two years ago and I don’t think I’ve accepted more than 5 follower requests. Outside of my posts on this website, Twitter is where I feel the freest on the Internet.
Similarly, those who know me well understand that my real-life privacy settings are very similar to my internet privacy settings. There are certain things that I don’t disclose to any of my friends and family, and there are other items that I may bring up to a specific loved one, who I think is the best fit for whatever I want to unload. In fact, one of my favorite things about this site is that much of what I post is a bombshell to even my closest friends and family. Thus, with the click of the button, everyone finds out whatever I want them to know. It’s a liberating feeling.
Yet, as I think about my decisions and why I withhold specific things I realize that some of my decisions have little to do with my privacy values. Some of my decisions are rooted in fear of the opinions of others. While most things I care little about other people’s opinions, there are certain areas that I care about greatly what other people think. A good example of is this is love interests or those I perceive others may perceive as a love interest. This has meant, I never post women on my social media without a qualifier, unless I’m dating them. Meaning there will always be a caption under the post or story to signal that this is nothing more than a platonic relationship. I struggle with posting even people that I think it is common knowledge that we are just friends or family because I worry about what others will think of me(I worry about what you all think as you read this as well!), and worry about what people will say about them. Yet, I understand I am not protecting them as much as I am protecting myself. Similarly, when I travel places, if I haven’t contacted people who live in a certain city and I consider us to be friends, I likely won’t disclose on my socials my location as I worry that those people might be upset. There might be cool things that I want to post but I likely won’t do it in the moment or subsequently, at all.
One of the big things I want to do going forward is to overcome my fear of judgment in certain areas and wanting to be liked by everyone. I have the ability to take back the power I have given others and most people don’t deserve to have any type of power over me. Inevitably, people are going to make judgments regardless, and I can’t get everyone to always say nice things about me no matter how hard I try. I’m not for everyone and I’m learning to be okay with that.
