Journal etiquette-help me out here

[ladyapple27]

I haven't been on LJ very long, and I've met some great people. The problem is that I often check out someones profile and am surprised to find out how strongly they discourage contact. (Believe me, I have no intention of bothering them after I read something like that.) Are there really that many people on LJ who lurk around harassing people? If there are, give me a friendly warning. I need to know how to protect myself.

What I'm wondering is, if you do not possess some degree of openness, how do you meet people?

After looking around a bit,I'm assuming that a private message is the best way to inquire about friending someone.

If I have committed any journal no-nos, then let me know. As I've said, I'm new to this and don't know the ropes.

Thanks to all of the wonderful people that have friended me. I didn't know that I was going to have this much fun.

Comments

[eqfe.livejournal.com]

Folks use LJ for a variety of reasons, some even on the advice of their mental health professional. Others like to limit their LJ flist to just RL friends, or a very small group of people. Others hold "friending" parties to make more friends. Others have flists in the 100s I've even seen some in the 1000s. Its a personal decision.
You're no different than a lot of us. If you have a positive interaction with someone in a comm or on a friends LJ you check out the person's profile, in part to see if it make sense adding them to your flist. I think its healthy that the folks who want to limit their lj are honest about that in their profile.
Many people use friends filters to decide what to read, and who gets to read their posts. I'm fairly binary its usually either all friends or everyone for me.
When you're around a little longer, you'll experience the fcut. This is where folks will prune back their flist, usually dropping people they don't interact with. Its hysterical how emotional this gets.

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

It's true that it's a goods thing for people who want to limit their LJ to be honest about it, but I was surprised by how hysterical some people are about it. A simple, straight forward statement will suffice. Then again, there are some pests who just don't get it unless you beat them over the head...

I've already gotten hints about how emotional the fcuts are. I don't think that I'd take it too personally; nobody can read everything online. One reason that I'd prefer a peep at someone's journal or read replies to a post before friending someone is to avoid cuts later.

Everybody's looking for something different. For my friends list, I want quality, not quanity. Anyhow, if you have 100s on your list, how can you possibly remember anything about the individual? People matter to me as individuals.

Speaking of quality, I really enjoy knowing you. What luck!

[eqfe.livejournal.com]

Back atch. Funny I was looking at my flist the other day and trying to remember how I initially met everyone. I think it just kinda grew organically.