A couple weeks ago, when we filmed the pancake episode of Cooking with Gandalf (watch it HERE!) with all the boys, the group of us had something of a “gossip night.” By that, I mean to say that me, Ellen, and the boys sat in our living room, ate pancakes, and talked about our romantic lives. Past girlfriends/boyfriends, crazy love stories, etc. The whole she-bang. It was doubly funny because it was between Ellen and me and four straight guys, but I guess it’s unfair of me to have expected anything different.
At this girls night of sorts, I told the sordid tale of Sean and I, which as most of you can probably attest to takes a while to explain and is pretty personal, especially when I got to the whole therapy bit. One of the boys, I think it might have been Gustavo or Alex, made a comment about how they were surprised with my openness. It was very personal stuff I was talking about, and although I adore all those boys, I’ve only known them for under two years, if that long.
The interesting thing is that I didn’t even consider the fact that my Sean story was so personal. We were just going around the room and telling our craziest relationship stories and, well, when you have a two year long tryst with a boy you met on Facebook, there’s not really any competition. But them bringing that up made me think.
Why do I feel so comfortable telling personal stories to people I don’t intimately know?
Honestly, I think it’s a combination of my experience as a blogger and my life at large. I’ve been spewing personal anecdotes on this blog for six years now, and in my brain, blogging and talking to people aren’t all that different, content-wise. More than that, though, my life has taught me that talking things out to people is a much healthier alternative than having tons of secrets. I mean, why wouldn’t I want my friends to know me better?
I believe in transparency in my personal life, because I’m kind of insane and tough to get along with. That’s not me being hard on myself: that’s just a fact. Ask anyone who has ever spent more than an hour with me- especially ask my roommates. I have a very strong personality and because I spend so much time inside my own head, I often have a hard time assimilating so social environments. So I figure the more people realize I’m a person, the more they’ll understand and respect me. The Sean story demonstrates that I’m more than some loud, awkward, aggressive girl on the fourth floor. I’m a loud, awkward, aggressive, deeply emotional and deeply sensitive girl on the fourth floor. And those two newly-revealed aspects of myself make it easier to see me as a person than as a caricature, which is probably going to be your first impression of me.
But it also comes down to something a lot more important: somewhere in the dark corners of my brain, I think that the more people know about me and my past, the harder it will be for them to hurt me for the fun of it.
It’s no secret that I was bullied throughout all of my life, another personal detail that many people wouldn’t divulge so readily. But it’s a fact. And I was bullied for a whole myriad of things, usually things that were merely at the surface of my personality. I know it was never my fault that I was bullied, and that even if those bullies had known be better it wouldn’t have helped, but college is a fresh start for me. All these people will see is the loud, sarcastic person I’ve become as a result of my past, not that small, scared little girl that would rather crouch over her journal than make a new friend. Loud and sarcastic is only fun for a little while, but emotional and sensitive ON TOP OF that is something you want to hang on to.
I guess my point is this: I am open about my past because I don’t see why I shouldn’t be. My long-distance relationship with a boy I met 4 times, my parents’ divorce, and my stint in therapy aren’t secrets, and they’re nothing to be ashamed of. They’re simply stories that provide a wider picture of who I am as a person, and I don’t see any reason as to why I should hide them.
Ask, and you shall be answered. Because why not?
