By Sara Eckel published October 14, 2019 – last reviewed on January 14, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Tom Kealy signed up for a day-long personal essay writing workshop in Berlin, the data scientist saw it as an engaging way to fill a Saturday. \u201cI thought it would be good fun\u2014trying interesting exercises, learning how to make something out of your experiences,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then his classmates went around the table to share what they\u2019d be discussing: a racist father, an S&M relationship gone bad, an abusive boyfriend. Kealy, slated to be the 14th of 15 in the group to speak, had planned to write about learning to draw. \u201cBy the time it got to me, I realized this was not the class I\u2019d signed up for. As the day went on, I increasingly felt, Oh my God, this is way too much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One could argue that in a personal-essay class, each participant should be prepared for whatever topic arises, and Kealy suspects he was just unlucky that the subject matter in this particular cohort was so dark. But his gut reaction\u2014whoa, TMI!\u2014is one many of us know well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We live in a time of unparalleled personal expression. Long-lost co-workers and high school acquaintances daily invite us into their homes and their psyches. Traditionally marginalized groups are speaking out. Victims are confronting abusers. Addicts are owning their pasts. The freedom to \u201cspeak your truth\u201d and \u201cgive zero f*cks\u201d brings a lot of benefits, but it can also lead to some thorny questions, like how much we should reveal about ourselves\u2014and how much we should want to know about others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each of us tries to erect a boundary around the parts of ourself we want to keep private, or at least shielded from those with whom we\u2019re not intimate. Some people are more vigilant about raising those firewalls than others, however, which can lead to discomfort, if not open conflict, because it\u2019s harder to keep others\u2019 revelations out than it is to keep our own within. \u201cWe think about boundaries as a self-oriented concept: This is my boundary. But it\u2019s not just a matter of what you\u2019re willing or not willing to say, it\u2019s also what you\u2019re willing to let in,\u201d says Mariana Bockarova, a psychology researcher at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In healthy relationships, romantic or otherwise, Bockarova says, we attune ourselves to others\u2019 boundaries by making gradual \u201cbids of trust.\u201d For example, on a first date you might confess that you\u2019d had a tough day at work because your boss was snippy to you. \u201cIf the other person doesn\u2019t say anything back, chances are you wouldn\u2019t further extend,\u201d she says. \u201cBids of trust are lessened when there\u2019s no reciprocity. You\u2019re suddenly not safe with this person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
..If You Show Me Yours<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sitting in that class of 15, Kealy\u2019s distressed silence didn\u2019t register the way it would have if he had been with only one or two people. It was easier to just stay quiet and keep his discomfort to himself. But even one-on-one, people aren\u2019t always receptive to cues\u2014averted eyes, frantic smiles\u2014that now is not the time to discuss their digestive-tract issues or custody battles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s the rub: We like telling others about ourselves. In research conducted by Illinois State University sociologist Susan Sprecher, previously unacquainted participants were paired and instructed to ask each other questions. In one group, people took turns\u2014one person spoke for 10 minutes while the partner listened, then they\u2019d switch. In the second group, individuals engaged in a reciprocal back and forth, responding to each other in the moment. In the reciprocal version, confidantes liked each other more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we are first getting to know one another, Sprecher explains, we find the encounter most enjoyable when the extent of self-disclosure is balanced. On a first date, the guy who talks nonstop about himself may be an unappealing candidate, but, then, so is the woman who only asks questions and never shares anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That natural inclination to reciprocate can backfire, however. Angela J. Thompson was initially happy to meet a woman named Sarah at a Chamber of Commerce event in Jacksonville, Florida. Both had gone through contentious divorces with abusive men who had cheated on them; Sarah knew this about Thompson because she had published an account of her ordeal in an anthology about women rebounding from setbacks. Thompson was, in fact, doing well by that time and running an asset-management company. She was glad to have an opportunity to share her advice and experience, but then Sarah started grilling her with questions like, \u201cDo you think your husband cheated because you gained weight?\u201d and \u201cHow often did you have sex?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shocked in the moment, Thompson says, she answered her. \u201cIt was almost over before I really started questioning myself,\u201d she says. \u201cI just wasn\u2019t prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n People who score high in the personality trait of agreeableness are particularly susceptible to this type of boundary blindsiding, Bockarova says. \u201cThey\u2019re more likely to accept someone oversharing and to share in response because they don\u2019t want the other person to feel in the wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For those so inclined, Bockarova recommends practicing the skill of being just a bit disagreeable\u2014allowing an awkward silence to hang for a few moments or declining to answer a prying question. This not only protects your privacy, but enables you to get some important information about other people. \u201cIf their reaction is not particularly kind, that will teach you something about whether you can engage in difficult conversations with them. If they validate your feelings and apologize, you\u2019d be more likely to trust them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Danielle Bayard Jackson, for example, has close female friends, but would sometimes feel uncomfortable when talk turned to their sex lives. \u201cThey might gab about it or make a joke. They\u2019ll divulge and ask questions about me and my husband\u2014not to be nosy, but because we\u2019ve had a glass of wine,\u201d she says. \u201cSo I\u2019ve learned to just say, \u2018Girl, I\u2019ll talk to you about a lot of things, but for some reason I protect that. That\u2019s just my thing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By making her need for privacy \u201cher thing,\u201d Jackson keeps the conversation from devolving into shame or blame. \u201cIf you say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, but that makes me really uncomfortable,\u2019 you\u2019ve created an awkward situation where they\u2019re scrambling to recover. But if I say, \u2018I love you, but I just don\u2019t talk about that,\u2019 that can actually create an interesting conversation,\u201d says Jackson, co-founder of a Tampa public relations firm for underrepresented groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dreading the Office<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n During her earlier career as a high school teacher, Jackson had a co-worker who talked at her incessantly. While Jackson tried to grade papers or schedule calls with parents in the teachers\u2019 lounge, the colleague yammered on, griping about students and the principal. Jackson knew better than to share her own work-related frustrations with such an indiscreet talker, but she also wasn\u2019t comfortable confronting her. \u201cI felt like I had to listen to her because everyone else shunned her; she didn\u2019t have anyone else to talk to,\u201d she says. \u201cI chose to be polite and to just dread going to work every day because I was too worried about the fallout from saying something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem bled into her home life, where her boyfriend was subject to nightly rants about the co-worker. \u201cI was possessed,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was all I wanted to talk about when I got home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jody Foster, a psychiatry professor at the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Perelman School of Medicine, says that letting the office oversharer dump on you isn\u2019t just detrimental to your productivity and mental well-being; it can also put you in a difficult position if someone is truly unstable, \u201cand then you realize, Oh no, this is my responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simply telling a colleague that she\u2019s out of bounds isn\u2019t always an option, since offending her could make your work life even more difficult. In that case, says Foster, co-author of The Schmuck in My Office: How to Deal Effectively With Difficult People at Work, consider putting a timer on the monologues. That\u2019s what Jackson eventually did. \u201cI learned to say, \u2018I\u2019m so sorry. I have to make these calls right now. Can we chat about this after school?\u2019 Then I\u2019d dedicate five minutes. After that, I\u2019d say \u2018I guess I should get going. I have papers to grade.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jackson believes her former co-worker was just needy, but sometimes colleagues have more insidious motives. They might want to push you to divulge your own grievances about the boss so they can one day use the information against you. Or they might be priming to dump their work on you, teeing up sympathy with sob stories about backaches and bad partners. The most dangerous of these people have the \u201cdark triad\u201d personality traits associated with ethically and morally questionable behavior\u2014narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. A 2018 Danish-German project found that a common denominator of these traits is a proclivity to prioritize one\u2019s own interests over the needs of others, even if it means causing harm to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To protect yourself, Foster advises, observe seemingly problematic co-workers\u2019 behavior over a significant period of time before offering your trust. Pay attention to who speaks over their colleagues in meetings, who takes credit for the group\u2019s work, and who always peddles the most salacious gossip. \u201cPeople are always giving you little tips of their iceberg,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And when you\u2019re the boss, you\u2019re likely to notice that some employees will strive to break down boundaries for their own benefit. \u201cThey want to draw you in so they can get past those barriers,\u201d says Dane Kolbaba, an entrepreneur whose companies include an ecofriendly pest-control firm in Phoenix. \u201cBut then you\u2019re not the boss anymore. You\u2019re just Dane, \u2018my buddy,\u2019 And with buddies you get special favors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In and out of the office, relationships change over time. College roommates fade to distant acquaintances while new neighbors become best friends and strangers become spouses. As we develop and step away from intimacy with others, the rules of engagement constantly shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Guys Open Up<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n During the initial, getting-to-know-you phase of a relationship, we engage in reciprocal sharing, but Sprecher says that as healthy relationships develop, we stop adhering to the straight tit for tat. \u201cIf you\u2019re on a fifth date and you had a really bad day and want to vent, you wouldn\u2019t necessarily want the other person to say, \u2018Okay, my turn. I want to talk about my horrible thing.\u2019 At the very beginning, reciprocity might be extremely important; later, the responsiveness of your partner is more important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As relationships progress, pairs discuss fewer topics but go deeper. The disclosure timetable, however, can vary greatly. For most of their 20-year friendship, Riz Rashdi and his two best friends never got very personal in their conversations. \u201cWe\u2019d talk about sports, their kids, what we did last weekend, surface-level stuff,\u201d says Rashdi, a San Diego business analyst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But when his marriage ended after 14 years, Rashdi wanted to know about his friends\u2019 experiences, since they had gone through divorces, too. Were they sad? What did they do with their ex-wives\u2019 stuff? Was it still in the bedroom when dates came over? \u201cWe got so much closer because I opened up. For them, it was stuff that had already happened three or four years earlier, but we\u2019d never talked about it because we\u2019re guys and we don\u2019t feel we need to. But once we opened the door, it was awesome. I thought, Is this what it\u2019s like being a woman\u2014where you get to connect this much with another person?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rashdi\u2019s instincts are correct: Women tend to reveal more of their emotional lives to one another than men do. \u201cMen tend to socialize with activity-based experiences, whether it\u2019s going fishing or watching sports together,\u201d Bockarova says. \u201cThey\u2019re less likely to have heart-to-hearts where they spend a really long time talking about their problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, many men rely on their romantic partners to receive all of their deepest fears and traumas\u2014a phenomemon that has been dubbed \u201cemotional gold-digging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWives tend to be better than husbands at maintaining intimate relationships beyond the marriage,\u201d says Northwestern University psychologist Eli Finkel, \u201cwhich means that husbands are highly dependent on their wives for emotional connection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finkel\u2019s research has found that Americans place significantly higher emotional demands on their marriages than they did in decades past, a problem exacerbated by the intensity of 21st-century life. Increased expectations for workers and parents, combined with an unending stream of digital information, leaves spouses with less bandwidth to meet their partner\u2019s needs. Finkel recommends that spouses\u2014especially husbands\u2014maintain a wide circle of friends and family members with whom they can share their interior lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, yes, reveal your most private self to your spouse, but remember that partners have to maintain boundaries, too, and might not always have the emotional capacity to revisit your difficult upbringing or fear of death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the time is right, sharing vulnerabilities with partners increases intimacy, but only under certain conditions. Chandra Khalifian, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, noticed that the vulnerabilities couples brought into therapy concerned issues that occurred within the relationship\u2014complaints like \u201cYou don\u2019t treat me as an equal.\u201d However, the bulk of the research she\u2019d seen centered on the effects on relationships of external difficulties partners had experienced before they met, like a bad divorce or a traumatic childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So Khalifian conducted research separating \u201cpartner-exclusive\u201d and \u201cpartner-inclusive\u201d vulnerabilities. While her work affirmed that partner-exclusive vulnerabilities increased intimacy, partner-inclusive ones actually created more distance. For example, one man in the study said he felt embarrassed when his partner made fun of him in front of their friends, violating a boundary he expected her to maintain: \u201cEven though you think it\u2019s just a joke, it makes me not trust what you say in public, so I don\u2019t want to spend time with you around our friends.\u201d In this dynamic, Khalifian says, the partner who caused the emotional pain feels implicated and is likely to respond defensively since she is motivated to reduce her own distress first, not comfort her partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we relate to each other in person, the impulse to alternate disclosures and bids of trust keeps most of us within bounds. But all of that goes out the window when we\u2019re relating to each other online. Without one-on-one social cues, it\u2019s easy to become careless with what we reveal about ourselves\u2014and others. And then it\u2019s Tom Kealy\u2019s oversharing writing class, times a billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moms on Facebook<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jennifer Golbeck, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland, says social media create a disconnect between the audience we think we have\u2014the friends whose posts we follow and like\u2014and the people actually watching us; studies by Facebook find that users estimate that their audience is only about 27 percent of its actual size. \u201cEven though we know the information is semi-public, we think we\u2019re talking to just a certain group of people,\u201d Golbeck says. \u201cWe\u2019re lulled into thinking we have a friendly audience when we don\u2019t necessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That cognitive dissonance is intentional, says Leah Plunkett, a professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law and the author of Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online. Technology companies don\u2019t actually intend for us to experience their platforms as public spaces, she says. \u201cThey want us to experience them as extensions of ourselves and our homes.\u201d That\u2019s why she, like Golbeck, recommends putting our 21st-century behavior in a 20th-century context\u2014an exercise she believes is particularly useful for parents. \u201cIf your parents had said, \u2018Oh honey, we just rented a billboard on the highway to let everyone know you\u2019re finally potty-trained,\u2019 that would have been weird,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the past several years, photographer Amber Faust has posted countless pictures of her kids online\u2014with more than 230,000 followers, her 3- and 4- year old sons are Instagram stars. But a few years ago, her 13-year-old daughter got fed up. She\u2019d go to school ready to show friends her new haircut, only to find that they\u2019d already seen it on Instagram\u2014on her mother\u2019s feed. Or her classmates would know she was getting braces\u2014before she did. \u201cShe\u2019d come home and say, \u2018Mom, what are you saying on Facebook?\u2019\u201d Faust admits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Faust realized she needed to cool it. She still liberally posts pictures of her boys, but her daughter has asserted veto power. \u201cShe\u2019ll say, \u2018Mom, this one\u2019s not for Instagram, but you can keep it on your phone.\u2019 I messed up a few times, but I\u2019m respecting it now,\u201d says Faust. She notes that her daughter\u2019s own Instagram page is dedicated solely to her digital artwork, \u201cwhich is crazy to me. She\u2019s got all these gorgeous pictures of herself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ask your average Baby Boomer or Gen Xer, and they will likely attribute the decline of digital boundaries to those kids today who can\u2019t keep their private information private. But Golbeck says the cohort of parents over 40 confuses generational differences with youthful indiscretion. \u201cIf there had been Facebook in the late sixties, you cannot tell me that Summer of Love would have not been a trending hashtag. We\u2019d have seen pictures of topless hippies with flower crowns all over the Internet. So when Baby Boomers say, \u2018I\u2019ve always been very protective,\u2019 that is just nonsense. They absolutely would have been posting that stuff,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s more, says Golbeck, younger people have been found to use more privacy controls than their elders do and to migrate toward platforms like Snapchat where posts are quickly and automatically deleted. And, like Faust\u2019s daughter, many young people who grew up with their milestones, awkward and otherwise, involuntarily splashed across their parents\u2019 social media feeds are now coming of age and taking control of their images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem isn\u2019t limited to adorable first-day-of-school pictures. Even those of us who aren\u2019t posting our memoirs and vacation documentaries probably reveal more than we realize. In one study, researchers analyzed only the things that Facebook users liked and found that, with varying levels of accuracy, they could predict the user\u2019s political party or drinking habits and whether their parents divorced before they turned 21. As data analytics become more sophisticated, Golbeck says, all those thumbs-up icons have the potential to greatly affect our futures should the information land in the hands of insurance companies, banks, university admissions officers, and prospective employers. She\u2019s not suggesting people go off the grid, but that they research and use plug-ins to cleanse accounts after a few weeks\u2019 time. Her exception: The Instagram feed of her five golden retrievers, which will remain intact in perpetuity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Parents Come Clean<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than sharing with others about their kids, and potentially violating their adolescent boundaries, psychologist Carl Pickhardt believes parents would do better to take down their own shields and share with their kids. \u201cSometimes an 18-year-old comes in for counseling and I\u2019ll ask him to tell me about his parents. The kid will just look at me and say, \u2018There\u2019s not much I can tell you. All we ever talk about is me,\u2019\u201d says Pickhardt, the author of Who Stole My Child?: Parenting Through the Four Stages of Adolescence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some parents worry that revealing past misdeeds to their kids amounts to tacit permission to engage in bad behavior, but Pickhardt says talking about the time mom or dad got slurring drunk or crashed the family car can help kids learn from adult mistakes. \u201cParents are a well of personal experience\u2014if they will allow their adolescents to know them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, parents should exercise some restraint. If a father is going through serious emotional distress, he shouldn\u2019t look to his teenage son or daughter for emotional support. At the same time, though, the adults might need to disclose that something is up, since the kids likely sense it anyway. Pickhardt recommends saying, \u201cYeah, there is some stuff going on, but I\u2019m handling it. I\u2019m going through kind of a hard emotional time, but I have somebody else I can talk to about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Generally, though, offering older children a more complete and nuanced portrait of a parent can aid their development into adulthood. Such an exchange can help parents cultivate an adult relationship with their child in which all participants\u2019 boundaries are honored. \u201cIf I\u2019m not modeling for my kids that I respect their bath time and their nightmares,\u201d Plunkett says, \u201cthen I have no reasonable basis to expect they\u2019ll do the same for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s the central paradox of boundaries: We want to be known, and we also want to be safe. We crave both intimacy and protection. The luckiest of us find people we can have both with, but we are always in danger of blowing it up\u2014of misplacing our trust or saying too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately, the complex, ever-shifting nature of our personal boundaries is also their strength. The lines in the sand will fade, but we can always redraw them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Originally published at Psychology Today<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sharing personal information brings people together and helps them like one another more. But in an age of self-disclosure, how do you know when you\u2019ve gone too far\u2014or when someone else has ulterior motives? 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