How To Be Authentic Without Oversharing

Ever watch a couple get divorced on Facebook?

Have you ever seen someone on Facebook or Twitter or whatever social media channel detail their entire life for the world to see?

From that nasty hemorrhoid that they got from eating too many spicy tacos to the rumour that they heard about a coworker's affair, how much is too much?

Authenticity, telling it like it is, walking the talk…these are things I believe people should practice when developing relationships with others.

We need to stop faking who we are. Because with false identities, we lose out on developing deep connections with others and in the end, we feel lonelier than if we didn't have any relationships at all.

Then it hit me,

"How can someone be authentic enough without sharing their life story and scaring the shit out of the other person?"

There's a fine balance between under and oversharing. You don't want the other person to come out of the date not knowing a single thing about you.

If you give short, generic responses, the other person may think you've got something to hide, that you're closed off and untrusting of others. They won't want to share with you, and you can't build trust with them. You need to show your personality and provide enough substance for them to be interested in developing a relationship with you.

However, if you give too much, it can alienate the other person and make them feel uncomfortable with the amount of private information you're revealing to them.

So how can you be authentic without oversharing?

It comes down to your intent and what you're looking to get from divulging this piece of information.

It's not easy.

Are you wanting to share with them what you've learned from your pain and how it's affected who you are? Is it difficult to talk about even if you've shared your story before?

Or are you trying to gain pity or sympathy from them? Is it a sob story? Are you wanting the other person to side with you because of what you went through? Are you sharing this to "win" something?

Personally, I don't tell a lot of people about my history of self-harm, depression and eating disorder. Yes, it's in my blog and if you were to Google my name, it will probably come out somewhere. It took a lot of courage to share this publicly and I did it because I wanted to bring awareness to the lessons that I learned.

That pain shaped who I am and it's always in the back of my mind. I'm always going to be self-conscious about my eating behaviours and self-loathing tendencies. That experience doesn't define who I am and it's not my identity ("unfortunate Asian girl who hurt herself because she had body image issues and wanted to be perfect").

Trust has been built (and you want to deepen the relationship)

Are you sharing something private because you feel like you've built enough trust with this person and you want them to know this thing about you?

Or are you looking for an unbiased sounding board?

Trust means you've shared enough detail about your life and they've done so as well for you to know they will understand where you're coming from when you become vulnerable with them. You don't need to provide a ton of context to what you are sharing with them. It doesn't seem like it's out of the blue.

It's funny how society has evolved to a point where people feel more comfortable sharing the most intimate details of their lives with strangers than with the people who are close to them.

For instance, it's harder to have an open and honest conversation with your father about your depression than it is to tweet that you just got a prescription for Prozac.

Or it's like pulling teeth when you have to tell your doctor about your funky discharge but you'll gladly ask Quora or Google,

"What should your vagina smell like after giving birth?"

A stranger won't judge me. A stranger doesn't know me. They will take my situation as it is and offer their unbiased opinion. They won't use it against us. We have less at stake with them.

We've become so insecure about our flaws that the fear of judgement from those we "trust" has forced us to overshare with those we don't "trust" at all. The relationship with that stranger doesn't deepen because we don't want it to. It's a one-time thing, an authentic fling.

However, if we showed vulnerability to those we've built trust with, our relationships would strengthen, allowing us to have more meaningful conversations and feel a lot less lonely.

So Readers, have you ever overshared with a stranger? When was the last time you were authentic with someone close to you?