Self-disclosure...Or So I Thought

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Fooling Myself

A team meeting we had earlier this week made me consider my level of self-absorption even further; I was disappointed by an exercise we did for fun, where we guessed everything from one another's pets' names to last movie seen or book read, to one of our career aspirations in or outside of IBM. The team was divided in half and the half that had to guess my answers got only three out of nine correct.

The lack of correct guesses shocked me because I thought I was the world's most self-disclosing person.

Self-disclosure on a blog that no one from my team keeps up with religiously vs. self-disclosure during casual conversation with team members should not lead me to be disappointed that they didn't know/understand me better, I realized. In fact, there were a number of teammates who were as apparently mysterious as I.

One of the items, a "wildcard - nugget that you want to share" was written by another colleague, but everyone thought it was mine: "Despite my gregarious appearance, I need significant amounts of time alone." I knew just whose it was and wondered why people mistook that for my sentiment. I decided that it was as much about their not having paid attention to his personality as it was about not having sufficiently regarded mine.

Maybe they picked up on something I've written about, if not talked about: I'm a lonely soul. I don't seek solitude, but rather, often, feel lonely or alone in my experience, and that's just me temperamentally.

Fringe Blogging Benefit

A few weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised by another exercise, where a number of us completed a Johari Window for one another; the word selected most often by colleagues to describe me was, "trustworthy."

My conclusion was that my habitual self-disclosure on my blog built trust with others, whether or not they were aware that I was disclosing....There was no paradox there, when I thought about it; there was a comfort in my own skin I gained from blogging my thoughts and it naturally informed how I moved through the world, and they caught that vibe whether or not they ever saw the blog.

If It's Not Too Personal...

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

The Man Who Makes My Daily Commute Possible

"If it's not too personal," he asked tonight, during a particularly congested ride, "Are you married or single? Do you have children?" This is our third week of spending traffic jams together, and while I'm at work, he sometimes gives rides to Pat, who is my "friend" for his purposes.

Pause. "I don't have a husband and I didn't manage to have children...but I do have fantastic nephews and an amazing niece."

Yesterday, he told me that he may not be able to keep being my driver at the end of the month, when they give him a new car to drive.

It amazed me how crest-fallen I felt. His company was among the more stable experiences I've had since our arrival.

Tonight, when he asked his personal question, I thought afterwards, What if I told him the full truth? Wouldn't I feel more comfortable, driving with him, knowing he knew me in all my humanity and still enjoyed driving me around? Or if he didn't want to drive me after he knew, wouldn't I prefer knowing that?

And yet, I told him that my mom will be 82 in November, God willing, and that I imagine that in Indian culture, no child would ever leave a parent of that age to go away for six months. He agreed that that's true, and yet, he didn't throw me out of the car.

Part of me wants to be cynical and say that my rupees are as good as anyone's, i.e., a rupee's a rupee, but another part of me wants to believe that he likes me despite my neglect of my mother. Would he like me, and "Miss Pat," if he knew we were a couple? Could he fathom our couplehood? Has he known from the start? Is he clueless?

Why am I feeling free to write about him, considering he could read this blog if he felt like logging onto the web and doing a Google search on me? I suppose I wish he would and make it easier for me.

He's deeply Catholic in a country that I've read does not understand or accept lesbianism, Ishita's liberal loveliness notwithstanding. Of course, I come from a land that also does not accept lesbianism, but I'm still openly me there. I thought about that earlier today and decided that the difference is that the United States is my native land and here, I'm a guest, who doesn't want to feel unwelcome.

I don't want to frustrate wonderful people like Ishita with my anxieties, and I hope she doesn't feel a need to reassure me again; I'll just re-read her generous comment from the other day.

What sort of conversations, I wonder, are other assignees having with the men who drive them to and from work daily?