I've been "around" on the net a lot.  I don't have (nor want) a lot of real-time friends.  My privacy and my "space" and my time are precious to me.  The internet has proved to be helpful to me.  I do some of my best thinking on my computer. When I want to talk, it's always there, ready when I am.  Sometimes I think I reveal too much of my "inside" me, the core me, my joys, my wounds, my fears, my hopes.  I like to just shoot the breeze sometimes and can be funny in a dry-wit sort of way.  But I really "need" somehow to open up my thoughts because partly I guess I want to know if there is anyone else like me out there or am I totally individual kind of freak.

Anyway, its amazing the variety of sites that are out there on which sharing of oneself is possible. There are news sites, dating sites, sites for gardeners, music lovers, sites for people who are struggling emotionally maybe their entire life.  And I've tried all of those kinds of sites and had some remarkable conversations there and learned a lot about myself.  I don't know why but I never seem to know really exactly where I am, head space wise, until if meet someone that has similar desires.   I LIKE getting in touch with whatever topic.  Sometimes its pretty much insignificant in the grand scheme of things but some times its pretty intense.  But I have met some amazing people in places you might think all you'd find are sexual deviants (these are "alternative" sites) and learned a lot about me and some of the people I meet.  Some places seem like they would be safer than others to open up yourself, a kind of cyber counseling session.

At one place in particular, based on the setting and the people and the theme I thought I'd be fairly safe in opening up.  And maybe it goes that way for a while.  But inevitably,  no matter what kind of site it is, the conversations gets "ugly"

There's always some roving jackal who seems to get off on cutting people to shreds, humiliating them, being deliberately cruel and that really bugs me.   I mean we don't know much about the person until we spend some time, meet etc.  I really like conversations with someone like me who is trying to be in touch with themselves, honest etc.

But inevitably, no matter where I choose to hang out, something/someone eventually gets really down in the mud hurtful.  Whether its a criticism about the physical person or the soul, or just where my mind is, that someone shows up who it appears likes destroying people.  the more entrenched in the site dynamics you are, the greater potential for for getting wounded.  As open as I am, I guess I should learn not to be because it seems every site I've gone to has always deteriorated to very unpleasant attacks that the person is sometimes so clever about doing that it isn't always obvious how cruel or to what depth this attack person is going.

If you've got personal messages available on site it opens it up for even greater abuse.

I tell myself to just forget it, hang it up, don't do that, don't go there, it won't work.  But inevitably I feel drawn back again.

I'll tell you it goes beyond just being dumb, some of it is just too much.  I've been torn to shreds on line and a couple of people openly campaigning for me to just end my life.  They say the world would be better off without me.  Depending on what else is going on, I have to say that there were times when what was happening it made me so sad, so distressed, that I felt totally alone and I lose perspective.

The conundrum is, that net conversations can be so amazing, so touching, that I like it.  But that other shoe that drops?  How do you deal with it?  I guess I've never had the greatest self-confidence or self-esteem and maybe that's part of it because some people just say "so what its just some online nut".  But I confess what others think matters a great deal to me.  And for someone to go to the lengths they do to be hurtful I can figure I must be pretty pathetic to either attract that kind of thing or also to put up with it.

Do I need to hang it up?  Quit going to these sites?  Sometimes they are sites like where people you'd think people go to help each other figure out stuff, computers, gardens, medical or legal stuff.  The most recent was a "community" of people who are there because they have problems with depression and issues with their past memories and stuff.  So you'd think it would be safe but it wasn't.

If you can't be safe in some place advertised as a "haven" or a healing place then where.

Some people have been vulnerable enough to actually hurt themselves because of what these people say.  Why do people do that.  How do you "do" online without getting blasted?  I really think there are emotional predators just like physical ones, and these people have a finely-tuned sense of when someone is struggling.  Sometimes they come off like you're friends which only makes the inevitable sucker punch hurt more.

Am I crazy to keep doing this?  Is there anywhere to be safe or if it is a matter of adjusting myself to where I don't let these people hurt me so badly, how do you do it?  Why is it that people like to destroy?

People can be extremely vulnerable.  On the other hand there are people who are either deliberately insensitive or just dumb that cause pain.

I need a place to share, I want a place to share and hopefully grow and learn and help others do the same but how do you do it without getting torn apart?  Sometimes I feel like I'm playing with fire but I have this inner need to communicate with people and like I said some of the times its been amazingly rewarding.  Do I need to sacrifice those times because of the risk of the other?

What to do?  What do you do?  I wish I was strong enough to say "who cares" but I guess I'm just not.