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A few Fridays ago, my friends and I go out to dinner.
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Pretty routine activity.
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I love going out to dinner on Fridays.
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It s just the perfect start to the weekend.
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I wake up in the morning on a Friday.
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TGIF, thank God it s Friday.
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I just, listen, I love Fridays.
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I love the weekend.
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And I ve been really making my weekends count for the last few months.
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So it s been particularly exciting when the weekend comes around.
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So listen, it was Friday, my friends and I go out to dinner, and this restaurant has phenomenal wine.
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And I m sort of getting into wine.
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I don t know shit about it at all, but I m getting into drinking it.
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For a long time, I was just drinking like tequila soda, vodka soda, but not anymore.
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I m kind of a wine girl now, I m getting into wine.
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Anywho, on this particular night at this particular restaurant, the waiter just kept giving us more wine.
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I d pound a glass, I d put it down on the table, I d look over and it s refilled.
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And I was like,
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Wow, what an act of generosity.
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You know, I don t even have to ask for another glass of wine.
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This dude is on it.
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He s on it.
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He is refilling me like there s no tomorrow.
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And at first I was like, this is great.
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Three glasses in, I was like, this actually might be a problem, right?
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This actually might become a problem very soon.
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I could have told him, all right, that s enough.
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But something inside me didn t want to say that.
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I wanted him to keep going.
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There was a devil and an angel on my shoulder, and the devil won.
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The devil told me not to speak up.
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Next thing I know, I m so drunk.
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I m not drunk to a point where I m like throwing up on the street.
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We ve all been there.
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But I m pretty drunk.
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I m loose.
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I m really loose.
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I sort of tried to calculate how much wine I had.
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Probably three quarters of a bottle.
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It s a lot for me.
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My friends and I went to a bar afterwards and we saw some of our friends.
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Now these are not friends that we re super close with.
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These are kids who we hang out with sometimes.
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Okay.
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We re like definitely friends with them.
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We re on a texting basis.
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We text each other.
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We only ever hang out on the weekends.
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We know a decent amount about each other, but not a lot.
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It s sort of at that level.
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Like we re not super close.
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I start talking to one of our friends, and we re having a conversation, and I m just oversharing left and right.
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It s not that I wasn t letting this person talk about themselves.
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It s not that I wasn t asking them questions about themselves.
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But every time it was my turn to talk, I swear to God, I was just exploding, telling this person way too much about my personal life, probably.
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I m not actually sure if I was taking it too far, but it s hard to remember because I was really drunk.
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The next morning I wake up and I m a wreck.
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I m a wreck because I completely overshared.
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This is not a new experience.
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I m not alone here.
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We ve all probably done this, but it was particularly uncomfortable.
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And I think the reason for that is because I hadn t been drunk in a while and I hadn t experienced that sort of next day anxiety about oversharing.
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And so feeling it again for the first time in a while, wow, it was vivid.
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It was vivid and it was dark.
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My whole day was very dark.
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I was so stressed out.
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I was like, oh my God, did I make this person?
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feel weird because I was telling them too much about me?
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Or are we friends enough where that was okay?
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Not that it wouldn t have been okay, but it just would have been in bad taste, right?
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No one s getting hurt.
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But are we friends enough where sharing these intimate details about my life are appropriate or warranted?
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Did they think it was weird?
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Do they now think I m weird because of it?
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It was a whole meltdown that one has.
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And I sort of had an epiphany.
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And I m not sure why this epiphany came now because I ve been oversharing arguably my whole life.
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I ve always been somebody who felt comfortable and good being incredibly vulnerable in real life and online.
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And I think I know why I m that way.
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Number one, it inspires a more interesting conversation.
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When I m vulnerable with people, people feel more comfortable being vulnerable with me.
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And for whatever reason, I m not afraid of being vulnerable.
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So I m always the one to start it.
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And not always, I guess, but most of the time, I m the one to start it because I m so quick to just take it there.
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And you know, I start out small, and then I feel it out with the other person, and then I ll build it up.
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And I think it s how I foster a conversation that is exciting to me.
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I do enjoy small talk to an extent.
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I don t think small talk is completely useless.
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I participate in small talk just as much as the next person, but I do prefer a deeper conversation.
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You know, that is more mentally stimulating for me.
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Some people don t like a deep conversation.
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And that s fine, too.
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And I try to pick up on when somebody s not down to be vulnerable.
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And so then I just either let my vulnerability be one sided, or I pull it back all together.
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But overall, I think it inspires a more interesting conversation.
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And I think that s one reason why I do it.
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I also think I do it because it feels good to overshare and be incredibly vulnerable with others.
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Tell them about all of my shortcomings, all of my challenges, all of my struggles, not all of them.
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plug those in when it feels necessary so that somebody gets a full, well-rounded picture of who I am.
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And the reason why that makes me feel safe and comfortable and good is because I m no longer worrying about people finding out something about me later that they don t like.
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I m able to trust that the person I m talking to likes me for exactly who I am.
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They don t like me because they think that I m hot and cool and mysterious.
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They like me because
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they just like me, even with my flaws, even with my shortcomings.
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It s sort of a defense mechanism.
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It s like if I tell people about all sides of me, there s no chance that they ll find out about something later that they don t like, and then they ll abandon me.
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So there s definitely a fear of abandonment involved in my desire to overshare.
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But I also think it just comes naturally to me.
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I have grown up in a household where I ve been one-on-one with both of my parents.
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My parents are divorced.
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I grew up spending time with them separately and very much one-on-one.
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I don t have siblings either.
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I had a very open, honest relationship with both of my parents, and I always felt comfortable telling them everything.
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I m not sure that this is true across the board, but in my experience, when your parents get divorced, they are so vulnerable that they show you, their child, a side of themselves that you would not have seen otherwise.
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You see your parent as a human, a real human, flaws and all, in a really vivid way.
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My parents got divorced when I was five.
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I saw their humanity very young, and it put us on more of an even playing field.
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I feel like the power dynamic changed.
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It s hard to say, because I was only five, but I really do believe that the power dynamic changed, and we became more like equals sooner.
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And so because of that, I just would tell my parents whatever.
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Hey, mom, just had sex for the first time.
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whoop, it was so weird.
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Whoa, or like, hey, dad just got super drunk at a party last night.
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they didn t always love the things that I did.
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And a lot of times they had a lot of constructive criticism on how I should live my life, but they would never get mad at me or scold me or make me feel bad.
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And I think that that ability to overshare with my parents has just made me comfortable with saying whatever to whoever, you know, telling embarrassing stories,
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talking about my challenges, like whatever it may be.
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I have no reservations because I grew up in a household where that was not met with explosive anger or explosive judgment.
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I feel like my oversharing comes with good intentions, which makes me wonder if I m oversharing at all.
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I might just be a really deeply vulnerable person.
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I m not quite sure, but I know for sure that when I m drunk,
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I can overshare.
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When I m sober, I don t know.
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I m not 100% sure.
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When I m drunk, yes, I can overshare.
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Not always, but a lot.
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I think because my intentions with my oversharing or extreme vulnerability have always been good.
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I ve never really questioned why I am that way and whether or not it s a good thing.
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And I wanted to look into it.
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And so that s what I did.
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I started out by looking up what it means to overshare because I have my own definition in my head, right?
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It s being extremely vulnerable with almost anyone.
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That was sort of my definition.
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When I Googled it, I found something a little bit different.
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According to scienceofpeople.com, oversharing is when you say more than is appropriate in a given situation or to a specific person.
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This means that oversharing typically has less to do with what you say and more about when, why, and whom you say it.
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I feel like I m pretty tactful about when I am really vulnerable.
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And I feel like my sense of knowing when to go there is good.
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And I could be completely delusional, which is very frightening, but I don t think I am.
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but I fully could be.
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I don t know.
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It s hard to know because the body language of others is not ignored by me.
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I m hyper-focused on it.
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And so if I feel like somebody is not meeting me on my level of vulnerability, I will pull back or allow it to just be one-sided.
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And it s not that I don t let other people talk about themselves either.
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I m not
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overwhelming somebody with my stories or my experiences, unless I feel like they want that.
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If they re asking me a bunch of questions,
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and they seem to want to know more, I m down to tell them my stories.
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And a lot of times people seem interested.
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So it s like, I don t know.
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I don t know if I m just a chronic oversharer, completely lacking social cues and not seeing that people are not into it, or if I m just really, really tapped into my vulnerable side.
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And it s not oversharing because people are actually interested and want to hear about it.
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This further solidified my belief that I might not be a chronic oversharer.
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I might just be a really vulnerable person who then overshares when drunk.
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I m still not 100% sure.
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So I wanted to look into why people overshare.
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What happens in the brain that makes us want to overshare?
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Because in order to figure out what the hell I m doing, I wanted to see what causes it and see if any of them resonated with me.
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Here s what I found, also from scienceofpeople.com.
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People overshare to fast track a relationship.
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A common reason for oversharing is the desire to build depth and emotional intimacy before the relationship is ready.
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This can often be connected to a stress or fear of not being liked by the person.
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The thing that is confusing me, though, is that I don t know if I do it too soon.
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Because the point is, like, oversharing is the desire to build depth and emotional intimacy before the relationship is ready.
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I feel like I tend to take it slow and build it up.
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You know, I start with oversharing in ways that are lighter and funnier.
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I may be telling an embarrassing story.
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or telling an interesting story about myself that s kind of vulnerable.
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And then over time, maybe I ll build it up to more vulnerable stories.
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But it s sort of up for debate when a relationship is ready to become a bit more vulnerable.
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It s all based on feel.
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And I think that my sense is pretty good, but I don t know.
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I don t know for sure.
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I m not in other people s
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brains, I don t know how they re feeling about my level of vulnerability.
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So that s really going to cause me to have an existential identity crisis later.
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Existential and identity crisis later.
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Another reason why people overshare is because they feel a false sense of closeness
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When someone is in your personal space, whether they re styling your hair or painting your nails, it can be easy to feel it is acceptable to share a lot with them.
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I definitely go in with my nail tech and my hair stylist and my makeup artists.
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They know everything about me.
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But again,
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I don t know if it s oversharing because, yeah, I m telling them all about my personal life.
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But a lot of times they come back to me with stories about their own personal lives that are equally as vulnerable.
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And if it s reciprocated, is it oversharing?
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People also overshare as a way to test how people will respond to something challenging or painful one has experienced.
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I definitely do this all the time.
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I ll say something just to see what response I get, and I don t even mean to do it, but I ll give an example.
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Let s say I was in a relationship and I told my boyfriend a story about my ex-boyfriend.
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Like, well, one time my ex-boyfriend said that I was really ugly in the morning.
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I might say that to test and see how my new current boyfriend responds.
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If he s like, ha ha ha, oh really?
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That s weird.
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That would tell me like, oh fuck, my new boyfriend agrees.
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If he was like, what the fuck?
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That s so rude.
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You look gorgeous in the morning, babe.
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You re so hot in the morning.
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You look so good.
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You re like, even though your eyes are so puffy that they re like swollen shut in like your hair, you have like a bald spot on the back of your head because you sleep so soundly that your hair gets all pushed.
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And then you have a bald spot.
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You re so hot in the morning, babe.
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I d be like, oh my God, it s not true.
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I do look hot in the morning.
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That s exactly what I wanted to hear.
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You know what I mean?
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Sometimes we can fish to hear what we want to hear.
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And a lot of times we overshare during that process.
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I definitely do that sometimes, although I actively try not to.
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And when I catch myself about to do it, I will try to stop because it s just not productive.
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But I do resonate with that.
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Next, people overshare to avoid awkward silence.
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Some people hate awkward silence so much they will do anything to avoid it, even oversharing, considering that awkward silence triggers the fight or flight part of our brain.
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I used to be so bad about this, oh my god, I couldn t handle a period of silence.
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I mean, even now I have moments where I struggle with silence,
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But when I was younger, it was so bad.
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And I would overshare immediately to get rid of the silence.
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I think I m getting better at it now, but there was a really long period of my life when, wow, that was huge.
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Because I always felt like it was my responsibility to prevent awkward silence.
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And I ll be honest, I haven t had many moments in my life where there has been an awkward silence.
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Because I don t let one happen.
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I will always fill it with something.
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For a long time, it was oversharing.
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I would say now I m getting better at filling those gaps with asking other people questions instead of just exploding with useless information about myself.
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I m learning to turn it on the other person.
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And it can be tough when you re having a conversation with somebody who clearly wants you to be the one to talk.
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They maybe don t want to talk about themselves.
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They have the opposite issue that I do.
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They re not an oversharer.
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They re mysterious.
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Ooh, that can get tough.
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But yeah, I definitely have used oversharing to avoid awkward silence.
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People also overshare if they have social anxiety.
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Those who struggle with social anxiety are typically more prone to oversharing.
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When you feel anxious around other people, it can easily lead to rambling.
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You may also start oversharing because of low self-confidence or the need to please people.
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Yeah, I resonate with all of this as well.
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I would say I m pretty outgoing overall, but I m still definitely socially anxious.
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Now, not around everyone, but there are certain people, certain types of people that make me very socially anxious.
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People who I think are really cool or people who I think are hot, like a hot guy or something.
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people who have sort of a judgmental attitude.
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People like that make me very socially anxious and I tend to ramble a lot around those people because I m just, I don t know, I can t think clearly.
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I can t slow my brain down.
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I m like running on adrenaline and so I ll tend to be a bit more prone to oversharing in those scenarios.
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So yeah, I resonate with that as well.
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Next, not being able to read social cues.
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People may overshare if they can t read the audience to see that they re uncomfortable with your oversharing.
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Some people just don t have a good sense of boundaries.
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See, this is where I m held up because I really do think that I m in tune with other people and I push it to a place where every
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everybody s comfortable and everybody s enjoying the conversation.
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I really do think that majority of the time that s the case.
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When I m drunk, I don t know.
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That s where everything I know about myself goes out the window.
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But for the most part, I think I m pretty good about
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keeping it in a place where everybody feels completely comfortable.
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But I m having one of those crises where I m like, would I even know if my sense was bad?
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I think I would, but I could be completely delusional.
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Everybody could be behind my back right now being like,
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Emma literally has no social cues and will over share like there s no tomorrow and clearly everybody is uncomfortable by it.
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That could fully be happening too and it s freaking me out.
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And I need to do sort of a study with everyone I know.
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I need to like call everyone I know and have them be brutally honest with me because this is the one piece of this that is throwing me for a loop.
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And last but not least, being raised by oversharers.
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If oversharing was the norm in your childhood household, then you re probably gonna overshare in the real world.
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As I mentioned earlier, I definitely had that in my childhood home.
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But was it oversharing or was it vulnerability?
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After reading through the reasons why humans overshare, I found that I resonated with a lot of them.
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But I also was like, what does that say about me?
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Because it seems like the line between oversharing and being vulnerable is very blurred.
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And so I wanted to dig into what s the difference between oversharing
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and being healthily vulnerable with others.
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Because those two things are very different.
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One is arguably a negative trait and one is arguably a positive trait.
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Yet the line between them is so blurred, it s messy.
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So thanks to scienceofpeople.com and Huffington Post, I found online the key difference between oversharing and being vulnerable.
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Here s what I found.
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Oversharing refers to the act of sharing too much personal information, often in an inappropriate or reckless manner.
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On the other hand, vulnerability refers to the willingness to be open and honest about one s feelings, thoughts, and experiences, even when doing so may be difficult or uncomfortable.
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Both involve the sharing of personal information, but the key difference lies in the intention and context in which that information is shared.
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Oversharing may be motivated by a desire for attention or validation and may not consider the impact on oneself or others.
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Vulnerability, on the other hand, involves a willingness to be open and honest about one s experiences in a way that fosters deeper connection and understanding.
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I think the difference is oversharing is about personal gain in some way.
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Like, okay, if I overshare about my life, I m going to get validation somehow.
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I m going to get a feeling of release.
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Getting to talk about this will allow me to release this burden.
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Oversharing will make this person feel like they re closer to me, which will give me a level of power over them in a way.
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Oversharing allows me to test a theory I have based on how this other person responds.
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Oversharing is enjoyable for me, and I like talking about myself too much.
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It seems like it s rooted in more selfish desires, whereas being vulnerable is more about making other people feel comfortable and allowing for deeper and more interesting conversation.
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Now you might be thinking right now, Emma, you ve gone back and forth about yourself a whole lot so far today.
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And you d be right.
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I ve bounced back and forth between believing that I m a deeply vulnerable person and I m a chronic oversharer.
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And I think the conclusion I ve come to is that I m a little bit of both, but I m definitely not mysterious.
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I ll tell you what.
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I can be really vulnerable.
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I can occasionally be an overshare.
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I m almost never mysterious.
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We know that for sure.
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Through investigating the concept of oversharing,
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I figured out that I actually used to be a really severe, severe oversharer in a way that was unhealthy.
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And I think it was rooted in social anxiety, wanting to test people s responses, avoiding awkward silence, and weirdly feeling relief when I would do it.
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You know, oversharing for me used to allow me to selfishly get something off my chest.
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And I definitely used to do that a lot more.
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I think without even realizing it through the years, I ve been able to restrain myself and turn my oversharing into just being vulnerable.
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I still overshare occasionally when I m drunk.
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But my self-diagnosis is that at this point in my life, I m just really vulnerable.
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And I don t actually think that that s a bad thing.
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I went into this mini self-discovery thinking that I had a problem.
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Honestly, I was like, I think I have an oversharing problem.
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But I m coming out the other side realizing, no, I used to have a problem.
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But without even realizing it, I actually turned it into something positive.
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So that s a win for Emma today.
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Okay, that s a win for Emma today.
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I m growing up, but I think it s important to know the difference between oversharing and being vulnerable, especially if you re somebody who s hyper aware of themselves, constantly analyzing themselves, because we don t want to stop being vulnerable.
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Because for people who are naturally vulnerable, that s somewhat of a superpower.
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It makes other people feel comfortable.
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It inspires great conversations.
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It makes other people feel less alone.
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There s so many benefits to being a deeply vulnerable person, but it s dangerous because it s so similar to oversharing that it s important to be clear on what the difference is so that you can be the best person that you can be.
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And for those of you out there who are chronic oversharers, like how I used to be and continue to be when drunk,
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I almost am talking about my drunk self as like a different version of myself.
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I know I shouldn t because that s still very much me, but it does feel like a different side of myself because she comes out rarely.
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If you re a chronic oversharer, this is not bad.
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This just means that you have the ability to be incredibly vulnerable.
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And this is an exciting opportunity to say, let me take this negative trait, oversharing, and turn it into a positive trait, being really vulnerable.
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Just through a few little shifts,
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So I looked up how to stop oversharing.
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So if there are some of you out there who are having a problem with it, I Googled it for you.
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Thanks again to scienceofpeople.com because you gave me a lot of information on this today.
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How to stop oversharing.
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Number one, ask questions.
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Leave room for others to talk about themselves.
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Don t give yourself the opportunity to overshare.
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If you re talking to somebody who s a bit more reserved, maybe asks you a lot of questions, fight back, okay?
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Don t take this as an opportunity to overshare just because there s a lot of dead space.
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Try to make it your goal to get that other person to talk.
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Next tip is so obvious, it s almost painful, but still it s sometimes helpful to be reminded.
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Practice mindfulness while speaking.
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Really think before you say things.
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For my whole life up until more recently, I have just blurted out words without thinking.
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Never would I think before I spoke.
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I would just go.
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But now when I m in conversation, I m much more thoughtful.
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Like before I say anything, I just briefly think about it.
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And I can t tell you how often I stop myself from saying too much or saying something I might regret saying later because it s too much information about myself.
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All the time, I stop myself.
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Next, figure out why you re oversharing.
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See what triggers you to want to overshare and come up with a solution for that moving forward.
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An example would be you tend to overshare when there is awkward silence.
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Well, maybe you figure out a question that you can ask anytime you hit a moment of awkward silence in a conversation.
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So maybe that would be, wait, where did you grow up?
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Or maybe that could be, so what d you do today?
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Or maybe that could be, so how s school going?
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You know, like it could be whatever, it could be whatever, but have like a list of five questions that you can just pop into a conversation anytime things get weird.
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So that instead of you feeling like, okay, I m just going to overshare now, you have a tool like, oh, I m going to just ask one of my five questions that I always have in my archive, in my brain, you know?
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And last but not least, shift the combo when discussing something that you tend to overshare about.
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I have a few things I tend to overshare about.
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Number one, my love life.
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Terrible about it.
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Can t stop talking about it.
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Tell everyone everything.
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That s not true.
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That s not true.
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Yeah, it is though.
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It kind of is.
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love to overshare about gross, embarrassing stories about myself like, oh, that one time I shit the bed.
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Oh, that one time I threw up on Hollywood Boulevard.
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Oh, that one time I threw up through my nose at a workout class.
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Oatmeal came out of my nose at that workout class.
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Oh, that one time I popped out a tonsil stone with my finger.
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Not everyone needs to hear about those stories all the time.
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They re fun and sometimes entertaining and funny too.
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But yeah, not everyone needs to know about that.
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Or me bringing up the fact that my parents are divorced.
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I have many different triggers where I have a lot of stories to tell and I have a lot of things to share.
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And sometimes it makes sense to dive into those things.
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And that s great.
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And it s good to be vulnerable about these things.
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But it s not always the right time.
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Determine whether the answer is yes or no.
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And if the answer is no, then shift the combo as quickly as you can, just so that you don t even get tempted.
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The second that you decide, no, I shouldn t do this, immediately change the subject or ask them a question.
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Listen, it s so important to nurture the side of yourself that wants to be vulnerable because genuine vulnerability helps us build meaningful bonds with others.
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It shows every side of our personality to people so that they have a well-rounded idea of who we are.
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It allows people to get to know us better.
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It makes other people feel less alone through shared experiences.
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It is so, so, so important.
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But for those of us who are so prone to being vulnerable, we re also very prone to oversharing.
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So being aware can change your life.
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And for a lot of us who are chronic oversharers, we ll just naturally grow out of it.
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That s really what happened to me.
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I realized that I just sort of naturally grew out of it.
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And the positive shift sort of happened on its own.
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Like I gradually went from being an oversharer to being more of just a vulnerable person in general.
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And I didn t even have to really try, but I think I had enough instances where I felt shame and anxiety after oversharing.
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And I got to a point where I was like, okay, you know what?
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I can t do this anymore.
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I need to be a bit more mindful.
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And that was pretty much the only thing I implemented in retrospect, was just a little bit more mindfulness, just thinking a little bit more before I speak.
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and not letting myself go completely.
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But I m not completely perfect.
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You know, I still occasionally overshare, especially when I m drunk.
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And that s something that still needs a bit of work.
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But now that I m so vividly aware of the difference between being vulnerable and oversharing, I think it s going to become easier for me to navigate down the line.
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And so I m glad I went down this little rabbit hole.
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It wasn t that deep of a rabbit hole, but it was deep enough.
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Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode.
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If you re an oversharer, I hope that you gained something from this.
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If you re deeply vulnerable, I hope that you were reminded how much of a superpower that is.
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If you re somebody who s more mysterious, I hope that this allowed you to understand the people in your life who overshare and
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I don t know.
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I just hope that you know that you re awesome.
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And I m so grateful that you decided to hang out with me today.
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And if you enjoyed it, new episodes every Thursday and Sunday.
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You can stream anywhere you stream podcasts, but video is exclusive on Spotify.
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So go to Spotify to watch the video episode of this podcast.
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Check out Anything Goes on Instagram at Anything Goes.
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Check me out on Instagram at Emma Chamberlain.
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Check out my coffee company, Chamberlain Coffee.
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Right now I m drinking an iced latte that I made homemade, and I m using our new caramel blend.
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It s fucking good.
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So go check out Chamberlain Coffee.
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We re in stores and we re online, so go check out the store locator if you want to find us in a store near you.
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I just love and appreciate you all, and I m always so grateful to spend time with you, and I hope that you feel the same.
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And if you don t, that s okay.
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I get it.
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I ll talk to you all soon.
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Love and appreciate you all.
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Okay, talk to you later.
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Okay, bye.