Opening yourself up

As self-involved at navel-gazing I'm at times (or perhaps always on this blog at least?), something I'm not and have traditionally never been is vulnerable in front of other people. Opening yourself up like a bag of stale chips is no good, no one likes the vinegary funk besides you and besides it's tiring after the first few handfuls. Stoicism. Since I was sixteen, perhaps even earlier (which is a couple years before I began this blog!) I decided I wanted to be stoic with my emotions. Create the smallest 'blast radius', don't complain, suck it up and fix things as you go.

Well the commitment to avoid complaining didn't last long. I've complained a lot to my nearest and dearest, sometimes even to coworkers and at times to random strangers. When things get a little hectic, there's a lot of fun in just letting lose, and just...unloading it on someone willing to listen, if not necessarily empathize.

This brings us to what's been up with me lately. And when I say lately it's maybe the last 3 maybe 6 months. I've started opening up to close friends about things that I'm afraid of, or concern me or just things in general. It's different from complaining because complaining takes a certain level of anger/frustration to trigger. Opening up and saying shit just comes out, without the need for strong emotions to push it out.

The other day, three weeks ago or was it two?, when we did the cards thing. I uhh haven't opened up so much to people I know not as well, ever. Or even to people I do know. With close friends and roommates yes, but they often have to piece the story together and make their own conclusions. There's hints of points, but I usually never give the story away. It's burdensome and people have their own baggage to carry without having to burden themselves with other people's shit. But uh more recently, it's been more...open...more vulnerable. More honest with other people, and perhaps with myself?

What does vulnerability mean? In this context, giving people enough context and additional information that could be used to harm or hurt you or cause emotional distress in the future. There's fear involved. And insecurity. Of being attacked, of being hurt. The insecurity exists perhaps because the defenses aren't so great, and the person is aware of them, so preemptively creates an extra barrier to themselves, to skip out on all the bs and be safe and cozy. The benefit is there's fewer drama and people aren't annoyed generally at you or don't pity you. The downside is people don't know you at all and feel like you're being defensive for no good reason, and finally they'll get annoyed anyway for a multitude of other reasons you give them, so that's not even a real pro. Additionally, drama originates from people's unwillingness and fear to communicate with honesty and openness. And if not, drama doesn't care for vulnerability or what-not, if there's enough festering emotional dirt and woulds it'll show itself up anyway.

Being honest with others mean being transparent about your emotional state, generally to the point of their interest. A transparency about one's emotional state opens one up to a greater chance for manipulation by not-good people, who can exploit vulnerabilities or gaps in defenses. However, if one's about and around such persons, they'll be exploitative and mean either way, regardless of one's honesty and transparency. The solution is to hang around nice gentle people, fallible obviously like everyone but who don't go looking for causing emotional troubles, as your intimate friend group.. And one doesn't go about blabbing everything to acquaintances coworkers and randos so it's win win win.

Why even bother, though? Because once your defenses are down, you can actually smell the flowers, appreciate the...uhh I dunno, but I imagine that's what happens. It's unclear actually, why one might want to open themselves up except to assure friends who think you're a stuckup person who doesn't reveal anything about yourself that no no it's fine guys don't worry. And honestly it's all one big experimentation anyway so what the hell. Lesgoooo!