Really, people are so odd. Admittedly, even when we categorize, generally people fall somewhere in the middle of a spectrum rather than far to one side or the other. But have you ever noticed that when it comes to information, especially of a personal nature, there are two kinds of people? Those who tell and those who don’t.
Notice the various statuses of my friends on social media this week, Facebook in specific:
[Kid's name] just pulled a tooth…along with the neighboring tooth that was attached by a hunk of gum tissue. Eeewwww!!!
Excuse me. TMI.
Or…
these mail people are about to piss me off! seriously someone needs to get me into that mailbox NOW.
Really? Going postal in public?
Or…
[kids name] is sick. Just finished doing all the sheets from throw up and now we are cleaning the bathrooms from the diarrhea.
Awesome. Never expect house guests in your home again.
Then just walking around in general public, you can find out all sorts of revelations:
Consider this one: Last week I was Christmas shopping in a new store.
The store owner was chatting with someone who was checking out. In their conversation, which was loudly being broadcast all over the small shop, I found out the following details:
–someone I know personally has a very deadly cancer.
–an acquaintance is getting a divorce because her husband cheated on her – with someone who live in my neighborhood.
–someone I don’t know but whose name I have heard often has parents who are suffering from dementia.
–someone else who I know well has a lake house and children who go to school with mine. The store owner was talking in a very negative way about these children.
Hmmm. Wish I’d been spared the third party details and allowed to find them out from the actual sources instead of by having to eavesdrop (I really needed to finish my shopping, which is what I did, as quickly as possible!).
Surely you’ve seen one like I saw yesterday, in checkout line.
Salesperson politely asks customer if she would like a 5% cash back card. She explains that her husband just divorced her and she has no money nor credit and can’t afford to be applying for charge cards.
While those annoying checkout questions bug me too, it was a real downer to holiday checkout shopping!
And have you ever been at work or school and made the mistake of asking someone “How are you” for the sake of being polite, and you got an answer like this:
Well, we just found out that my dog is probably going to have to be put to sleep this week. It is a terrible ordeal because he has been with our family for over 15 years and I don’t know how I am going to tell my children tonight.
Information Spiller. For sure.
My husband comes from this kind of family. They share everything. When my niece started her period, the whole family knew about it within 24 hours. !! When someone has a doctor visit, we all know the lab results. If there is a breakup or a divorce we hear about every detail of every argument leading up to said event. It makes for a lot of drama, but they are also a close family. Finances, religion, illness, nothing is sacred here.
On the flip side, there are the people who don’t say a word about anything.
I found out yesterday that my parents are moving to Florida. They’ve sold their house, found a new one and are moving next month. Without breathing a word. Good for them, I guess, but, hey, way to hold out on the info!
The opposite problem of the social network issue, above, is the posting that might look like this:
Please pray for me. It’s an unspoken request but I really need your prayers.
or the even more cryptic:
Why do these things keep happening to me?
Nightmares? Thieves? Bad Mexican food? Hangnails? What?
Another friend likes to assume you know things when clearly you don’t. We send mail to her but find out later she lived there three addresses ago. She is constantly dating but never really reveals to whom. She just uses names like “Jim” and “Matt” and expects people to know she is referring to her boyfriend and not the dog.
Unlike my in-laws, my family likes to refer to themselves as “private.” I’d say it’s more like secretive. Everyone in the same room can know about the elephant on the table, have discussed in detail the elephant in pairs, but among the whole group it’s a hushed-tone, sweep-under-the-rug, pretend the elephant is not there, kind of situation.
It’s interesting, really, to assess how we react to change or crisis in our lives. Or even just the day-to-day events that happen to us. Do you spill the beans and reveal every detail of every event to every person you meet? Or do you keep it all in and store it inside, never telling a soul what’s going on in your world? If you’re the latter, do you expect others to figure it out or do you wish they’d just move about their own lives and ignore yours altogether?
Share your strategy below! Spill it! Oh–or don’t tell a thing. It’s up to you!
Tags: compare contrast, lists, manners, people, social media
