Want to hear an embarrassing story?
Ok. I’m twenty-three, shacked up in a fishing village on the south coast of Java with an extremely beautiful young man named Simon who has honeyed skin, sun-bleached curls, and the chiseled features of a Roman god, with abs to match. We met last week in a hostel in Singapore, each of us on our way home from our respective backpacking trips around Southeast Asia and India. We soon discovered that we wanted to sleep together, preferably in nicer surroundings than the overcrowded hostel, so we decided to delay our flights home and jaunt over to Indonesia.
Our home for the week is a rustic yet romantic little row of beachside guest rooms where the hosts leave banana pancakes and coffee outside our door every morning.
On the second night, Simon and I are tangled up in each other’s limbs, exchanging the kind of intimate stories that new lovers share in the dark. Maybe our eyes are closed, maybe open; it doesn’t matter, we see with our skin. We are unselfconscious creatures made of muscle, breath, heat, and voice.
In our night hut, Simon’s face is a Picasso-esque assemblage of indigo shapes accented by the occasional flash of white teeth as his head tilts back in laughter. I’m telling a raunchy story and hamming it up for comic effect when an unexpected sound pierces our cocoon. A male voice, sounding as near as the pillow beside us, says in a thick German accent, “Little girl, we can hear every word you are saying. Nobody cares who you fucked and how you fucked them.”
I am dumbstruck with embarrassment. How stupid of me—the “walls” between these rooms are made of woven mats. We are essentially sharing a bedroom with our neighbors, and they are not amused. Whisper-giggling, Simon and I gather up our shorts and t-shirts and a pack of cigarettes and take our date night down to the starlit beach. Simon’s arms are warm, but I can’t shake the cold lump in my belly. I feel exposed. And ashamed. Little girl…
I wish I could say this was a one-off incident, but it’s not the only time a stranger has chastised me for the public airing of private matters. A self-confessed oversharer, I often find myself on the “inappropriate” side of decorum.
I don’t know why I am this way. Maybe it’s because my family was always a bit on the fringe, so the social mores that dictate what is and isn’t considered polite never became second nature to me. Instead, my nature is to open up as wide as possible. I love to discuss my personal experiences, including (and maybe especially) the really private stuff that society tells us we should keep to ourselves despite the enormous weight it carries in our lives.
I realize not everyone is an open book like me, but I do think we’re all similarly self-absorbed. Some folks just hide it better. And I don’t mean that as an insult; it’s just the way we humans are. Every last one of us is more wrapped up in our own lives than just about anything else. And we all long to be witnessed, no matter how often we hear, “nobody cares.”
In close friendships, we mutually make space for this need in each other. Self-disclosure is an act of vulnerability, and vulnerability is the gateway to connection. The bond of trust between us is woven by passing strands of risk and safety back and forth again and again.
And yet, of course, there is such a thing as reading the room and choosing your moments wisely. I was embarrassed that night in Pangandaran not because I got too down and dirty but because I had exposed myself to an accidental audience. (And, in retrospect, the guy next door was a bit more of a dick about it than he needed to be.)
This is why personal disclosure is complicated for writers of memoir. It is obviously central to the genre. There’s no life in the work without honesty, and the more generous and honest we can be on the page, the more deeply readers can potentially connect with our writing.
My favorite writers are those who invite me into the dark with them. Into their secret shame and fragile hope. Show me the heroic gore of the birthing room, the animal lust, the rage not fit for polite society. Because, honestly, fuck polite society and its acceptability codes. Makes me want to rip my clothes off and dance naked in a fountain.
But the risks of writing are real because the relationship between writer and reader is not an equitable one in which both parties co-create emotional safety. Anything you say in print can and will, at some point, be flung back at you by some unsympathetic jerk.
The fear of this kind of attack is what keeps us from writing freely about our feelings and intimate experiences. Which is a shame because—news flash—your unspeakable crimes and whispered confessions are shocking to no one. Every one of us has a private life consisting of roughly the same components, from woeful errors and ethical lapses to blinding love and piercing longings.
When we write our deepest truth about these things, the results can be transformative not only for the writer but for the reader, too. Because although the details of our stories are always uniquely specific, there is common meaning in them that shows us the contours of ourselves in each other. At its best, personal, intimate writing has the power to help both writer and reader feel less alone in the world.
Having said that, I do think it’s possible to “overshare” in our writing. As intimate as the act of reading can be, a book is not pillow talk, it’s a public forum. We can’t control who is in the audience, so we’d better be prepared to stand comfortably in whatever spotlight we have made for ourselves.
This has nothing to do with propriety and everything to do with our own boundaries. Not every piece of writing needs to be a no-holds-barred tell-all. There is a place for blood and guts and a place for modesty and abstraction. As writers, we are in control of how much—and what kind—of detail we reveal. This is creative freedom. And freedom grounded in agency is essential for the making of good art.
My experience is that the veils become easier to dance with skillfully with age. The boundaries are clearer, and more clearly my own. As I’ve become more settled in myself I feel less need to perform and also less anxiety about what others may judge me for. I am sovereign in my choices about which pieces of my story I will share and what form I will give them, just as it’s up to me to decide whose ear I will whisper into in the dark.
This week on The Selfish Gift podcast: Laura Cathcart Robbins!
It's famously difficult for a first-time, unknown author to get a memoir traditionally published, much less to have traditional publishers get into a bidding war over it. Laura Cathcart Robbins defied all the odds when she burst onto the "quit lit" scene with her brilliant, brave recovery memoir, Stash: My Life in Hiding (Atria/Simon and Schuster, 2023).
Stash is the candid account of an affluent, Hollywood wife and mother struggling with addiction, and her battle to get sober even as her marriage is falling apart. It is relatable, inspiring, courageous, and a real page-turner.
The book went on to appear three times in the New York Times, was named a "best memoir of the year" by Elle magazine, and earned its author awards, accolades, and national media coverage.
In this week’s episode of The Selfish Gift podcast, Laura opens up and tells all about her unconventional—and often "surreal"—meteoric rise as a celebrated author, including:
• How the first article she ever published went viral and changed everything
• What it's like being one of the only Black authors in the recovery memoir genre—and why we need more memoirs from authors of color
• The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that kickstarted her publishing journey, even though the offer itself wound up being a dead-end
…and much more.
Tune into this inspiring and revealing conversation and learn how vulnerability, determination, and the love of writing fueled Laura's success.