My dentist says: "Open up"

Today at Yong Seng's birthday party, we sat around and talked - it was GREAT. The topic of opening up to other people with our thoughts and feelings came up.

I so happens that I just wrote Matt Laird a ridiculously long e-mail last night and a substantial portion of it was about that exact same topic. Since I'm too lazy to talk about it for the 3rd time, I just cut and paste that portion of the email here.

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Ah, my “openness”. It’s all in writing, so to speak. From the time I was little, I opened up to my journal. My secrets were safe there. I was writing to something that would always be on my side. Then, I discovered the internet and made a lot of penpals. They became my best friends and I turned to them when I needed someone to “talk” to. They didn’t know me or my family and it felt safe turning to strangers. And then there was Matthew. Next, I moved to college where I started dating and had REAL friends. I opened up to one person at a time; always a guy – a guy who would eventually become an ex-boyfriend.

My whole life, people have turned to me with their problems. I like helping people and it’s an ego boost to me when people open up to me that way, but there were a couple of them who loved drama and were constantly finding things to whine about. I didn’t want to be like that. I was anxious to keep my self-pity to myself so that no one could think about me the way I thought about them (Do unto others as you would have others do to you - when will I ever learn?)

I also felt that I had to demonstrate strength for those who turned to me and conceal my weaknesses. I felt that they would think less of me if they knew. There are many who think of me as a cheerful person. Hah. How did I manage to pull that off, I wonder.

When I first started the blog, it was meant for just me. I just broke up with Mark and no longer had anyone to turn to so I channeled my attention to writing. I think you of all people would understand how good it feels to put your thoughts down on “paper”.

Well, I told Mark about it at the very beginning because a lot of what I wrote involved him and it became a way to tell him how I felt and how I was dealing with our breakup. Then I let Jared in for the same reason. Other people stumbled across my site. One of them was someone I knew – I was FREAKED OUT and started thinking about what I was writing a lot more carefully. Didn’t want to reveal too much, you know.

But somewhere in the process, I went back to read my old blogs, and read a ton of other blogs and realized that I was drawn to those blogs that opened up completely. Oh, I appreciate humor and I enjoy reading about other people’s observations, be it political or just opportunities for witticisms and so forth. But I’ve always been a fan of drama, passion and sad stories. I like getting on the inside of someone else’s world and feel like I am not the only lonely one.

One thing that characterizes me is my love for attention. I found a couple of blogs that I loved and learnt that a lot of other people read them. They received a lot of feedback and support. I have a tendency to covet – and I wanted what they had: fans.

So, on some whim, I sent out a mass email telling all the friends I could think of (except ones that I felt I might want to complain about in my blog, heh) about my blogger. A lot of them actually did read my page – didn’t leave comments, so I guess I’ll never know exactly who. (WILL YOU GUYS PLEASE LEAVE ME A MESSAGE?)

I was afraid of becoming less than a mystery before, but after opening up and having some good friends read about my feelings, people really felt they knew me a lot better, and I could stop pretending. I don’t like pity much, so I still don’t really talk to people about my problems but at least I don’t make it a secret that I have them now.

I have tried all my life to upkeep an image of perfection among my friends – that’s why I’ve never gotten really close to them (and why hypocrisy is something I have to battle with). But once I gave myself some room for error, I felt an immense relief and other people were glad to know that I’m only human after all.

What really surprised me was how other people began to open up to me as a result. It’s nice when people feel comfortable around you that way. Since then, I’ve really bonded with a couple of girl friends here. A lot of good comes from opening up. I’m learning that.

Gee, I love talking about myself way too much. That’s why I was restraining myself from opening up before – I have a tendency to take things to extremes, hence all this information you probably aren’t interested in.

You mentioned something about being careful to select stories you put on your blog. I do that sometimes: attempt to impress my readers. I want to say something witty or funny or cute so that people will say, “She’s so cool!” when they read what I have to say (I do that when reading other people's blogs). I still think about my readers a lot when writing. I love writing for readers. It’s fun. It also helps me keep my blog from being a total pity party. But some days, I say ‘SCREW IT ALL’ and just write how I feel. And you know, people seem to like that the most. There are more people like me than I thought, I guess. We’re always looking for something to pity so we don’t feel so bad for ourselves.

Who’s to say what’s appropriate to post on a blog and what isn’t? That blog is meant for you and you shouldn’t let your audience restrain you from doing whatever you want with it – it’s not like you have viewer ratings to deal with!

Isn’t it wonderful when you don’t have to do things for approval and money?
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Actually, I have been trying to get the permalinks on my blogs to work for a while. That way, I can put something on my sidebar where I can link you to blogs that you guys have voted as "must reads". Maybe I should put a "Rate This Blog" thingy after every post. *rubs hands together*

You know, I just might!

So much for not caring about ratings. Psh.