The Dangers of Oversharing

Don't worry, this isn't going to be like Emily Gould's 12-page oversharing analysis of her history of oversharing in the New York Times (though if you're reading this, NY Times... I am available). But I do want to talk a little bit today about oversharing. Which is sort of like writing about writing or singing about singing (i.e. usually pointless). But here I go.

So. What is oversharing? Being too honest, being too vulnerable. Opening yourself up for criticism. Spilling the details of your life to any old stranger you meet. Telling your mom too much about your sex life. Risking that people won't like you, will feel uncomfortable, will avert their eyes.

Like high school gym class – when being uncoordinated and self-conscious was not charming or funny. When you walked into the gym for the 80th straight day of kickball and tried to play it cool and pretend that kickball was beneath you, that you didn’t care, but you could hear people muttering and sighing. Well... I guess that's not really an example of oversharing so much as it is an awkward memory. But whatever, it feels the same.

Like wearing the wrong thing to a formal event. Or wearing something too fancy – equally embarrassing.

Like the guy at a party who gets out his guitar and won’t stop playing and doesn’t seem to realize that he sucks. He just sings song after banal song, clueless that he has brought the party to a grinding halt. Like if I opened my journal and started reading it out loud and didn’t stop even when the giggling faded and the room got dead silent.

That is the danger of writing a blog. These are the images that flash through my mind as I decide to make my blog public. Not that someone I know will find it and be offended – but that they will be quietly embarrassed for me and look at me differently when I see them in person. Since it’s in this weird amoral aphysical space/nonspace called the internet, the BLOGOSPHERE – there is no way to read in someone’s eyes if I’ve said too much. So I just have to plow through and hope my instincts about what to say and what not to say are on target.

I guess you could say I’m a professional oversharer. I’m a prude in my private life but onstage I stripped naked to Proud to be an American. I dread the idea of crying in public but in my solo show I crafted a huge, awkward, embarrassing meltdown in front of the audience. So clearly there’s something about oversharing that appeals to me.

But with performing, there is a clear line between onstage and offstage – even when you’re making weird performances where you are playing “yourself” – and the lines are different with blogging. And I don’t know where they are yet.

So I guess what I’m saying is: hello, world. This is my blog. Please don’t hate me because I suck at kickball.

Oh yeah: and happy new year!