I always fail at keeping diaries/journals. 
Most of the time, I end up writing something like:
Today I woke up. Then did stuff. Then I slept.
Really boring. 
My life is quite boring.
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I know how you feel even though I keep like different kinds of diaries/journals. Like for example:
- Journal Of Toxicity (kind of like the Burn Book from Mean Girls but I write about why I cut ties with this person whether itās a ex-friend or toxic family member
- Mood diary. I write about my mood and why Iām feeling like that e.g. pissed off because that mean aunt of mine is annoying me with her existence a long with her mother-in-law
- Random picture book where I get pictures from Google, cut them out and stick them in my book and write about my thoughts & opinions. Most of the entries are like essays when I write them lol
- Diary where I put date and time and start off with, āDear diary, today me & my cat stayed at home all day, watching Hannibal Lecter. It was fun!ā
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Monday 9th September 2019
6:12pm
Dear diary,
Right now, I am testing my diary entry on this thread because it has been a while. Therefore I can now confirm that there is a slight difference between a diary and a journal. I am now sitting by my laptop, writing this random entry because everything from my diary are way too personal to share because they all contain strong language and mature themes. Especially when I express my emotions and so on.
But anyway, I just wanted to write a random entry on here because I want to show off my writing skills and yes I am repeating myself because Iām a nutter! Hahaha. Time to read some funny Episode stories! Bye bye.
Peace out!
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As an American, I think we use both but thereās more of a stigma against calling it a diary as that has girly/weak connotations front agree with the stigma, but itās there). So dudes would be more likely to call it a journal even if itās in the same formatā¦ so please file to r/pointlesslygendered.
There may be a difference beyond that as well.
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I never knew itās a gendered thing even though I think I remember in that Episode story Troublemaker, Brody kept a journal and starts off an entry with āDear dumbss" and the MC started off her entries with "Dear smartssā.
Maybe youāre right, it can be a gendered thing.
Also, did you ever have a lesson in school where you write a diary entry in class on what you have done on the weekend or during the holidays? In the UK, we used to do that in class even though Iām not sure if they still do this now. Maybe things have changed 
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Yeah, definitely when we were younger like 6-7 and starting out writing but I donāt think it was like mandatory, just a lot of teachers did it. In the US our curricula isnāt as standardized since we have it on the state level.
And I think itās silly to have it gendered, but thatās kind of the perceptionā¦
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I say diary and I use British English
I donāt use one now, but when I first moved my life to Canada, I kept one almost religiously. I even have a second one because I finished the first one, but then I stopped writing in that oneā¦ in October 2016. Started writing in the first one in February 2015. The second one I wasnāt very good at writing in though lol. Itās more than half empty and itās a nice notebook.
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Same here!
I remember when I first had a personal diary, I used to write about why I canāt stand this person and so on. Then a few years later, I stopped owning a diary since I got mocked for keeping a diary because apparently people would read through your things and use it against you when I donāt even let people read my diary. Though I was really angry when one of my cousins randomly found my diary in a very discreet place that she read an entry where it wasnāt my handwriting at all as I did let someone smack talk someone I used to be friends with and oh man, I got interrogated for that when it wasnāt even my handwriting (I was 11 when this happened) and this other aunt started interrogating me about it and tried to demand answers whether I had a boyfriend or not (bruhh, kids at that age know f**k all about relationships).
Right now, I still keep this really cute diary where I just write about my life and do a bit of smack talking. I have multiple diaries actually 
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Anyone old enough to remember livejournal? Thatās what I used in middle/high school. Just googled and itās apparently Russian now.
Stopped keeping a journal/diary after my mom read about how many boys I kissed on a trip with my friends when I was 18ā¦
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Holy mackerel! How did she react?
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Not well. But she couldnāt do much since I left for college right after. I was super mad though, it was a huge betrayal of trust for her to read it!
Honestly, I cringe thinking about it. Also it was so poorly written. I found it and read it out loud to one of my friends from the trip and we laughed at it but Iām kind of glad to have that record of what I was thinking at that age. Found a physical one from freshman year of HS too and it was a cringe-fest but fascinating.
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I know how you feel. Must have left a hole in your heart, eh? You were almost an adult for crying out loud! She shouldnāt have read it in the first place!
I was mega angry when my aunt read one of my diaries and she interrogated me about it (I was 18). Also, when I told the people I used to be friends with responded with, āDonāt keep a diary in the first place then.ā It was so difficult to not write my feelings down for like 3 years as I felt pressured. Good thing that aunt is married with 2 kids so she wouldnāt dare to read my entries as theyāre aggressively disturbing.
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Yeah, it took me a while to get over it, honestly.
Thatās so disrespectful of your aunt!!! Itās none of her business at all. And yeah, 18 is legally an adult so it sucks that she did that. I kind of understand when your kid is younger and you donāt have an open relationship and you want to make sure theyāre making good choices but 18 is too old for that.
And not keeping a diary shouldnāt be the only other optionā¦ people need to keep their unhelpful opinions to themselves sometimes.
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omg same experience! Except I was 15 and my mom read (awful) poems about how much I hated my life and my parents. (It was my emo/evanescence phase, donāt judge me) Iām still completely mortified when I think about it. I just really REALLY hope she forgot all about this (but Iām sure itās quite hard to forget when your child writes she hates you) 
This is exactly why I stopped writing my thoughts. I donāt want to remember or regret my stupidity, haha.
Aaaaand Iām old enough to remember Live Journalā¦
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I bet it has. Have you made up with your mum after that? Man people have no respect for anybodyās privacy.
Tell me about it! I just prefer writing everything in a diary because I tend to let my thoughts go wild when I write. More therapeutic than self harming and not to mention, I prefer writing in my diary than write a long paragraph on social media about what I do and stuff. You canāt blame me for not having any social media either because I prefer not to be on it and plus, Iām more of a lone wolf now. Meaning that I donāt even need Facebook, Twitter, IG, Snapchat to survive.
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No judgement. Youāre talking to a girl who went to a Good Charlotte concert just to scream the lyrics āangry at my fatherā at the top of her lungs 
Old people unite! I vaguely wonder if itās still up and I shudder to thinkā¦ especially since I had public entries friends could comment on and hidden ones just for meā¦
I donāt think it would still be up because I had a tumblr with my college bf listing all the reasons we loved each other and I got an email awhile ago that it was being taken down for inactivity haha.
Yes, it was a decade ago so no grudges but I definitely didnāt call her much from my first year of uniā¦ and since them. Iām a really bad daughterā¦
Yeah, writing just for you is super therapeutic! And knowing there wonāt be an audience, you donāt have to be performative and pretend everything is just rosy or feel like youāre throwing a pity party for attention. You keep on writing for yourself!
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Donāt worry, I can be pretty much a bad daughter myself since I have pretty bad rows with mum time to time.
For sure! Itās better than sharing unnecessary information to the world where they can actually use that information against you.
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I use the words interchangeably , but I think the big difference between the two . Is that usually a diary is a record of personal and daily experiences where emotion usually plays a big part of.it. While a journal could be more direct and can be seen as a more general record or logbook . They are also often used to save things in or write little reminders in, to yourself.
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Added a discussion tag!
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Looking back at our replies on here and I forgot to mention another story about keeping a diary.
I remember when I was 11, I was pissed off when my aunt (the same one I ranted to you about) and my cousin read one of my diaries where it wasnāt even my handwriting. Basically, someone I was friends with smack talk some girl we couldnāt stand in our neighbourhood. You know when weāre that young, we always seem to giggle when it comes to the word sex and anything related to that. Though obviously I had no clue about foreplay and stuff like that at that age. But man, I was so angry that night they were in my room going through that diary when I was planning to get rid of it.
My other aunt also interrogated me about this. It was even disturbing when she asked me if I had a boyfriend. I didnāt like how she exposed me to these kind of topics.
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