It’s All Kosher (No. 5): Sharing Your Life Story
The Unpious Posek2011The Unpious PosekLove & SexOff the Derech
Dear Posek -Tongue-Tied in Jersey City
Dearest Tongue-Tied,
Strangers you meet don’t need to know more than the very simple facts about your life as it is presently. When making introductions, give your first name, the town you live in and what you do for a living. Any additional personal information should not be shared until subsequent meetings. There is no need to tell a girl on a first date that you have two children up in Monsey where someone was just set on fire by a Chasidic Rabbi’s disciple that burned up to sixty percent of the victim’s body and the superstar Lipa got involved, and then to conclude your “personal introduction” during dessert by explaining your philosophy of Hasidism. That, or any other way of telling a stranger on a plane, at a party, or on a random Main Street that you were once Chasidic is giving way too much information.
I know you carry around the baggage of your past. Feeling like a wanderer in your new environment can compel you to unload your pekel to anyone you meet. If you need to talk about it, talk to a therapist or close friend. If you give too much information about your past because you feel like it’s the only topic about which you can carry a conversation with others, or because it’s a way of apologizing for your accent and naiveté, realize that speaking about all of these things only makes your “misfitness” more of an impediment. It is a lot more obvious to others that you are different if you cannot carry on a neutral introductory conversation. Opening up may give you relief from your social anxieties but it will impede your ability to redefine yourself as a normal everyday person that just happens to be on a plane, at a party or on Main Street.
You need to be careful about your privacy and boundaries. Everyone’s details of their lives are confidential. It is not something you share without first establishing some trust. Just because a listener won’t judge you for breaking from the fold, doesn’t mean they are entitled to hear all about it.
In practical terms, this means finding different things to talk about when you meet someone for the first or second time. For example, the weather, sports, news and other generic subjects that make up your typical chit-chat talk. The place you meet the other person, or the reason you meet him or her, can also be material for a discussion. If you meet someone at an event or in a store, you can talk about why you’re there, or what your opinions of the place are. Get used to talking about everyday things by practicing deflecting questions that lead to too much disclosure. You may even ask a friend to practice with you. For example, try being asked if you are or once were Hasidic and get used to answering a matter-of-fact “yes”, without going into details. If the questioner pushes you for details about what your youth was like, you can simply offer a one word adjective like “different” and redirect the conversation to something else.
This does not mean that you should not open up about your rich story when making deep connections with others. But, if you establish a relationship before you share your past, you will discover that others also have fascinating experiences and that so many things about your history are universal. I encourage you to differentiate between people you know well and those you only know as acquaintances or don’t know at all, and share information accordingly.
Good luck.
Posek
The Unpious Posek welcomes your queries on all matters of impiety. Send your questions to posek@unpious.com.
18 Responses
I mention it. And sometimes I say something like “I could talk about that life a lot, but honestly I’m happier now with my current life so I prefer not to dwell on it.” It seems to work pretty well.
You’re so on the money when you say that people find your story fascinating. Try doing this years ago when no one (at least as far as you know) was doing it. You felt pretty unique. I like to say it was a neat party trick. I’d suddenly drop that detail to college friends (I don’t have the accent but that’s another story) and watch their jaws drop. Then came the twenty questions. More like a hundred really. But these were friends and I always deflected questions, much to their eternal consternation.
I haven’t ceased to be a source of fascination, after all these years. That’s what I like about Facebook. I come back from Williamsburg, full of vignettes of my time there. I post them and leave it at that.
You could do what I do: Put your whole story into a blog and then when you meet someone new give them a business card with your blog address on it. Tell them “The whole story’s in there.” If they are really interested they’ll read it. And if they aren’t interested, then you won’t be boring them.
Thanks,
I’ll use this info coming across different ppl. When they ask if I’m chasidish I s/t feel I most – to be more true – to note that I’m only an outlook chusid, what is indeed a long story.
But reading the above will be helpful.
As time goes by, it’ll become less pressing. Now when I meet people it doesn’t necessarily come up for a while, because I’ve been secular for about a decade. When dating, though, people usually do share at least the broad strokes of their pasts pretty early on. It’s part of the getting-to-know you phase.
I don’t think anyone was scared away by my past. More people were fascinated and many respected me for having the courage to go OTD.
Interesting advice , first of all I find everything written on this site about just making causal conversation very helpful, but that could just be because I by nature am not good at causal conversation. That is probably enhanced by the fact that I have a very different cultural background (chassidic) then most “normal” people , and hence feel like I have less to talk about and feel like I relate to them less.
Another issue I have is, when asked am I a hasid , or a lubavitcher, I get semi defensive because my identity is still being formed and part of me wants to dissociated with the chassidic lifestyle , but another part of me wants to keep parts of it. (To anyone who says you can have both , I snicker in advance. Good morning, that is the complication, and what I am figuring out.)
“I don’t think anyone was scared away by my past. More people were fascinated and many respected me for having the courage to go OTD.”
You bet, JewishAtheist. They’re not turned off. They don’t shut up!
Velvel, by nature you might just be a more introverted person, more reticent to share. This may surprise you but I’m pretty introverted too. I’m social and loquacious at times so I can hide it. Plus, all those years working in news, I got to ask the questions. Instead of answering them. Velvel, you just might feel more squirmy than the average introvert because you have this complicated background. As do we all here.
Don’t force it. It’s okay to be private. It’s okay to be quiet. It’s even okay to be confused. It’s all part of living. As long as you can work up the resolve to share something, to make just some small talk to get you through the hump, I am sure you are a lot more okay than you give yourself credit for.
Just send me the check in the mail. I’ll give you a discount
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J.- I think I stated that I am more reserved by nature in my comment (now that I look , not clearly) , it is something I know about myself, and yes I speak to people all the time and have millions of things to share but small talk at a party/get together I find difficult.
By the way i am not surprised that your reserved or outgoing, everyone is outgoing online, it is not a chiddush at all.
Ok I found your comment really condescending , which was capped off and proven to me by your last line ,and no the smilie face didn’t help.
To be grammatically correct, should the site’s name not be “Impious” ?
Regards,
Dov
Velvel, truly sorry. I’m regret my comment came off in a way I did not intend. Honest. My intention was not to be condescending. Didn’t mean for my response to be perceived as patronizing and paternalistic.
I don’t portend to know you (I seem to be on a “p” kick here). I’d certainly take offense too if someone presumed to know me and size me up. That was hardly my intention here. I was just musing on introversion in general. To digress, I read a fascinating book some years ago on smart introspective introverted people. I wasn’t trying to pigeonhole you or presume I know who you are. I don’t know you and individuals are far too complex and interesting to be narrowed down to a stereotype. I was just reflecting, that’s all. No more than that.
As for the last line: It’s just a joke, albeit a bad one, as you’ve demonstrated here. It started the year I homeschooled my daughter, the year I got hooked on yahoogroups and blogs. We’d pontificate, offer advice, and sometimes throw in that last tag line as a joke. Not meant exclusively for you, not intended to imply you need therapy and that I’m this unofficial therapist. Really, just a joke, admittedly hackneyed by now. A universal one but as said, perhaps a rather bad one.
Hope this helps. Please accept my apologies for unwittingly offending you.
“I” regret. Not “I’m” Typo.
J. I fully accept your apology and really respect the fact that you have the ability to see that others may take what you said a different way then you meant it. Also I see what you mean that you were commenting on people in general as opposed to commenting on me specifically, even though it was really not clear.
Like any other traumatic life story bring it up if it’s appropriate. Don’t overshare if it’s not causing problems in normal human relations.
Velvel, thanks so much! I’m sorry it wasn’t clear. I was more nuanced than necessary.
I’d like to just say that I really enjoyed watching J and Velvels exchange. Civility online is a rarity.
Thanks. I try and treat Velvel Belkin as I would treat my real name , as a person with a reputation and with standards. The only reason I don’t use my real name is because it would be harmful to me in my community.
Thanks for the compliment, prili! I’d been musing on how the anonymity of the internet often causes people to be far more rude than they would in a face to face exchange. In my case, I wasn’t trying to be rude or condescending to Vevel, at least not intentionally. But that’s how it came off, that’s how Velvel perceived it. When I read his response and saw I’d offended him, I went back, re-read my comment and realized some humility and apology was in order. Thanks for noticing!
That’s a lesson I take away from Tisha B’Av too. Civility, treating each other well; to me that’s the essence of what it means to be Jewish. Derech eretz kodma la’Torah.