I've already written about how stupid I can be, and I'm kind of getting tired of how much I torture myself over it, but I did another dumb thing this week. I can't help but make dumb mistakes, over and over, because it is the only way that I learn. I was not born with that innate knowledge of what is a good idea and what is a bad idea. I am the type of person who learns what a burn is by sticking my hand in the fire.
I made the mistake, last week, of linking my blog to Liam's Facebook page, just to make sure that what I quoted him as saying was okay to have out there. While I was telling Najwa and Gabriel about doing so, Gabriel pointed out to me that I had basically just invited everyone Liam knows to go and look at my blog. "And?" I said, not quite catching on.
"Mike is gonna read it!" he said, "Mike is gonna read it and he'll read it and he's probably reading it right now."
I thought about this, and I got that same feeling that I got when I realized I left my diary open on my bed, just waiting for any member of my family to pick up and read. "No, no, I don't think he will," I said, not entirely convincing myself but trying like hell to convince him.
"You did that on purpose," Gabriel said, "You wanted him to read it."
He was teasing me, of course, but there was a grain of belief to it. He was pointing out that I probably did do it on purpose, left a trail of breadcrumbs for Mike to follow to the place where I broadcast all of my unfiltered emotions. The more I thought about it, though I didn't want to admit it, the more it seemed that, once again, Gabriel was right. I could have sent the link to Liam as a private message, which would have kept anyone but him from seeing it, but I didn't. I posted the link on his timeline, where everyone could see it, knowing full well that everyone would see it, and probably, in the back of my mind, thinking that Mike would see it, too. "It doesn't matter if I wanted him to read it," I said, "Because he doesn't care what I think. Even if he does read it, it won't change anything."
"You still want him to read it," Gabriel said, and I kind of just glared at him because, again, he's probably right.
I heard back from Liam a few days later, asking me to please leave any conversations we have about a third party out of my blog, to which I replied that I understood. I am really new at this, I explained, and though that is not really an excuse, it won't happen again. The real problem with what I posted, that Mike would take issue with, of course, is not how I feel, but how it appears that Liam feels. It wasn't right for me to speak for him. Even though I know Mike could not care less what I have to say, he more than likely does care what his friend has to say. It's one thing for me to say what I think. It is another thing entirely for me to repeat something another person said, because even though I didn't make anything up, I don't have perfect recall and I may have filled in the gaps. So, now I know to keep what my friends say off the record, unless they give me permission to repeat what they say. It's not as if I have a huge readership, but I have a close readership, which is even more dangerous. Pretty much all of the people who read this already know me personally, and also know each other. It's good that I'm catching on to this now, but I wish I didn't have to fuck up like this in order to learn.
Luckily, this was a somewhat safe fire to stick my hand into. Liam doesn't really get angry, or, if he does, I've never seen it. He didn't yell at me and he didn't make me feel like an idiot. He did call me a dumb girl, but that's not anything out of the ordinary. He has always called me Dum-Dum or Kid, so dumb girl doesn't bother me. As for what Mike may have potentially read, I will probably never know about it, but I'm not worried. I am a little too honest, with other people if not with myself, but I haven't said anything in this blog that I would not say directly to him. Mike can take it. I am worried that one day, Gino might read it and see something that I wish he hadn't seen, but Gino is a different type of person entirely. He isn't worse or better, he is just different. He is emotional and he can't hide it when his feeling have been hurt. This is why I have talked about this blog with him, but I haven't told him how to find it, and, more revealingly, he hasn't asked. he either knows I have written some things about him that he would rather not know, or he just isn't interested in reading what I've written. Either way, it's better, because I started this so I could have a way to get my thoughts out of my head, and I can't do that if I am terrified that one of those thoughts is going to make Gino want to yell at me. The only thing I have to avoid is directly quoting anything that is said about another person. That should keep me out of hot water for now.
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