Contemplations of Closets

[kiya]

Discussion on mailing list (serenejournal posted about this) crossed with a question griffen asked has led me to one of those sudden realisation things.

I get very messed up with trust issues, very easily. There are a number of ways that one can contemplate dealing with this; some of them are better than others.

The way I seem to prefer to deal with this is to preclude the possibility of trust-stress.

I don't make knowing basic information about me a trust issue.

It's too risky to think of these things in terms of who can be trusted with the information, it makes the entire thing a terrific fraughtness. It's giving over too much power over me to these other people, giving them the ability to hurt me very badly in ways that I know I'm vulnerable to.

Knowledge is power, sure -- but I've defined a whole bunch of stuff out of 'knowledge'. It's just stuff that's there. I don't gain any power by turning this into knowledge, I gain a weakness; on the flip side, by letting it be stuff that's there, I gain the power of knowing who reacts like a complete freak to stuff that's just there, not doing anything to them.

Oshiire aikijutsu.

Comments

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

I think I understand what you're saying, and I think I completely agree with you. I think everyone has different things that make them freak, and I don't really have a quibble with that, actually, even if it's "just sitting there." I think everyone gets the right to say "no, this may be out there in the world, but I don't want to bring images of it into *my* world." But just on an efficiency level, it's helpful to know who will define my stuff as Intolerable Squickage, if only in saving me the time and trouble of finding this out *after* investing months or years on a friendship that was doomed from Day One.

But... on the risk of getting all tangenty in your journal... I go back and forth on the closet concept. Because there are also people who *can* find a way to deal with Intolerable Squickage *if* they get to know me for a while before being confronted with the Squickage. I don't accept "I hate people like you, hide for the rest of your life," but I kind of understand "break it to me gently." And as much as I want to say "oh, please, why would anyone be so bothered by that, it's not harming *them*" over certain things, I also know that there are certain *other* things that provoke a strong "oh, man, I really don't need to know this about you..." in myself, so how can I condemn someone else's botherment? But then, someone else's botherment shouldn't mean that one should hide or be ashamed. I kinda see both sides of this and run out of hands pretty fast. :)

I guess in general I agree that it's better to err on the side of sharing more than hiding more-- especially if it's something so central to your life that you have to tie yourself up in knots to avoid mentioning it. (I've been accused of shouting my politics to the four winds in Pagan groups, but honestly, is there any logic to "no, I can't make the gathering on Saturday, I have to be a.... well, I have a meeting. Oh yeah, that subject came up this afternoon at the... well, it came up.") And that if not being open about something with someone is more hurtful than losing the relationship would be. I just don't think that's *always* the case, if that makes sense.

Your post made me think. I hope it was okay to dither about it here.

[kiya]

Thing is, for most of the 'I'd be able to handle this stuff if I got to know you before knowing about it' sorts of thigns I've seen, well, nobody who doesn't know these things knows me. At best, they know a badly edited version, but it's more likely to be a mocked-up fake, something that isn't recognisable as me except through a really weird filter.

I can't fit my head around the idea that someone could get to know me without knowing that I'm completely committed to my family -- which means knowing something about my family, which is a "coming out". I can't imagine someone thinking they know me without knowing at least a little bit about my faith -- another "coming out". Or that I suffer from depression. Or whatever. If I were in.

It would be like someone thinking they know me without knowing I write.

And I'm not an easy person to get along with, and I don't know what someone's going to go bonkers over. They may be fine with one of the non-mainstream things about me, and flip out over something entirely innocuous. I'm opinionated and tend towards occasional blunt-and-abrasive with it; I tend towards heresies of a variety of my non-mainstream tendencies; I see differences where other people conflate and can't figure out the distinctions other people are making. I use the word "sci-fi" and I do BDSM; the former has caused me more social grief than the latter. I can't win for losing.

Anything I could do would be a hack-job edit at best, because the things that break other people are completely opaque to me most of the time; that's at the best, as the way it feels to me is always "I'm lying to these people and deceiving them about who I am."

I can't break "The person you thought I was never existed, it was all an intricate lie" gently. . . especially when I've got such a lousy track record on figuring out what's likely to cause freakiness. The only way I can do anything remotely approaching a closet is go all-business on people, which is what I did when I had the office job; nobody learns anything about 'me' because only enough of me to do the job shows up. It's a front, a mask; it has no personal attributes to talk about, so it doesn't.

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

*nods* I understand what you're saying. Maybe it's just more... ambiguous... for me. Just this weekend a friend of Rob's came over to help with some lawn/garden labor and eat dinner with us. I don't know this guy very well, but I know he's a fundamentalist Christian and generally a nice guy. He knows I am Pagan, as he has to walk by my car and its bumper-stickers to get to the front door-- he asked what religion I practice, and I told him, and he seemed okay with it. But when, if ever, should he know that Rob and I have an open marriage? Or that I write fanfiction? Or that I not only have a chronic pain condition, but I also have cerebral palsy? He's shared dinner with us, been a guest in our home. But he's not -my- friend, and sharing too much could mess up a friendship for my husband, who makes friends neither easily nor quickly. Yes, I felt very awkward and strange trying to skirt around topics that I would certainly discuss with one of -my- friends, but Rob has a whole lot fewer "non-mainstream things" than I do, and I kinda feel caution is worth it here. I'm in a local writing group, and I'm becoming closer and closer friends with the core members and they know most of what I wouldn't share with, say, the people for whom I work. But they don't know I have an open marriage, they don't know I was a Satanist for ten years, and they don't know how much depression my illness causes. Do they need to know that? I know all three are potentially disturbing to people. When should I share these things, if ever? Yes, I'm editing, but not all that much. As for a "break it to me gently" example, I know two people who have erotic relationships (or at least they perceive it as such) with their Gods. One shoves it into people's faces at every possible opportunity, and it's a concept that I honestly find extremely upsetting-- especially since Netjer is also understood to be their PARENTS. The other person told me after some pretty significant time had passed. I accept that it is important to her, I don't want to hear the details-- and I think if she'd told me that right off I would have run for the hills. Maybe that limits how close I can ever be with her, but I can't really change that. I can't make something that I find disturbing un-disturbing.

I'm not disagreeing, really, I just struggle with this whole issue. At least on things that aren't really, really core. (And maybe the whole thing boils down to that I define less things as core? I don't know) But then I end up having a conversation and one of these things either trips out, or I end up realizing that the story I'm telling includes something I don't want to talk about, and my whole cautiousness in sharing is shot to hell-- and sometimes I end up realizing that I was cautious for no good reason because the other person is *fine* with whatever I thought would be a huge problem. So maybe I should think "I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, so dammit I will." Gah!

[kiya]

Being out doesn't mean that everyone needs to know everything, because some interactions with people just aren't that sort of information.

I mean, (to paraphrase what serenejournal wrote on the topic), I don't go out and buy a gallon of milk and say at the counter, "By the way, I'm poly and pagan and . . .!" The person who's selling me the milk and I don't have a relationship where we need to know that sort of thing. We have a relationship where I need to know if they have milk and they need to know if I have three bucks.

I mean, personally, I can't imagine many situations where it would be appropriate or relevant to bring up having a sexual relationship with one's god. I mean, I could see it in an in-depth discussion of practice of Feri or in a deep sharing-of-intimacies context between individual people, or in an occasional brain-blat journal entry for those folks who talk about their sex lives in their LJs. Y'know?

Or if you and/or Rob were in a position in your open relationship that there was someone new you wanted to marry, someone who might move in with you, or whatever -- there's a point at which simple dealing with day-to-day life just plain contains that information, y'know?

I'm y'know'ing a lot. Y'know? :P

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

LOL, I do know. :) I think my dithering and your posts are now in kinda the same place.

I think what you just replied rather highlights the problem with the two ends of the closeting debate-- "never have closets" and "closets are helpful" both obscure the world of gray that exists between your best friend and the milkman; and between day-to-day living information and something like sex with your Parent. (Which is why I was tearing my hair out reading the willful misunderstanding that the individual debating with you on nonfluffypagans (or was it Pagan? Recons?) was engaging in-- "you want to tell everyone everything!" Urg!) Certainly the closer people get the more they share, but I defy anyone to say that figuring out when a relationship is close enough to bump up the information-level is *easy.*

[kiya]

That would be The Mother Of All Fluffy Thelemites on nonfluffypagans, I believe.

The one who suggested "doing ritual astrally" and "closing the circle" because if anyone noticed that I did anything different from what they do my ritual space would be Irrevocably Polluted By Bad Vibes, right?

(I catted it here and here. Which is probably the only reason both of us left that thread still breathing.)

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's the one I meant. The pan-Pagan communities tend to run together for me. :)

Crystal . . . vibration . . . RAINBOW!

LOVE that!

[kiya]

I was also pleased with "To be honest, it's actually kinda a pyramid scheme".

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I've notice the same obscuring of boundaries without the closets, actually. A lot of people call just anyone "friend", which could be because they, like me, were told as kids that people's feelings would be hurt if they weren't called your friend. It probably doesn't help that "acquaintance" is unwieldy and sounds stuffy in conversation. Most folks still seem to understand that the store clerk is not the same as your co-worker is not the same as your partner, but they use the same word for a lot of those categories, and I'm the kind of person who thinks usage can affect the thinking process.

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

Thank you both for the fascinating conversation.

Myself, for the most part I subscribe to what I call the "purloined letter" theory - I don't necessarily hide many things, I'm just subtle. For example, if one of my coworkers were to find out and be shocked that I'm Kemetic, I'd point out that it's not a huge surprise, I've been it all along, I just haven't shoved it in their face. I *do* wear a Het-heru pendant almost daily, and have a picture of Ma'at over my computer, and wear Egyptian-themed t-shirts occasionally. If they didn't figure it out, ok, but it's not ME that's brought the topic up - and if the topic bothers them, THEY should stop talking and concerning themselves about it, and I will continue to be professional as I have been all along.

I'll admit I don't have little kinky signals going out on a regular basis at work, though. If someone found out outside of work and brought it up, I'd stare them down, tell them they didn't find it out here, it doesn't have any place here, and consequently they should stop talking about it here.

It's a lot easier to do this in Seattle, I admit. When I was in Atlanta I'd just come down with headaches and leave early on Samhain or Imbolc, or call in sick on Beltane. . . nobody saw a pattern there. I still wore the same things and had Egyptian art in my cube, though.

Outside of my work and my friends who know me well, I don't have anything that's obvious enough about me that builds a recognizable pattern amongst casual acquaintances, I guess.