If I Speak - 88: What are the ethics of oversharing?

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Come and see us live! We’re in Manchester on 25 November with Lanre Bakare, author of We Were There – get tickets from Contact Theatre. Then we’ll be at EartH in East London on 16 December with Jordan Stephens – actor, author and one half of Rizzle Kicks! Tickets are available from Dice. This week, […]

Hello. Hello. Hello. Where do we go from here? Where do we go from here? We could just leave it there. Hello, hello. Hello. Greetings, citizens of earth. This is if I speak from me, Ash Sarka, who has forgotten how to speak like a normal human being, and... Me, Moilow v. McLean, who didn't possess that capacity in the first place, but gives it a damn good go. Before we get into it, we actually have some announcements. So there are two events coming up that you, the people, need to know about.

Event number one, because this is the one which is happening soonest. We have a wonderful event outside of London at Contact Theatre in Manchester with the one, the only, Lanre Bacare. Moyer, tell us a bit about him. He is a journalist and author of We Were There. He works for The Guardian. He's a very charismatic and interesting speaker, as you can testify, Ash. And we are thrilled to be welcoming him to the If I Speak.

extended universe, as I like to call it. And what's the date of this event? We'll be pitching up in Manchester. A cold wind will be blown for the city on the 25th of November. You can get tickets from Contact Theatre, which is where we will coincidentally, not so coincidentally, be appearing. They're very reasonably priced. We are thrilled and excited to be there.

And we are so excited to be in Manchester that we'll even be sticking around for a little social afterwards. So you can come and hang out with us. A little social. A little social. Dip a toe in the social pool. Yeah. And not only that, not only do we have our Manchester event coming up in November, on the 16th of December, we will be back at Earth Theatre, Dawson.

And this time, we will be joined by Jordan Stevens. Huge gap. Musician, actor, bestselling author of avoidance, drugs, heartbreak and dogs. We don't actually know what we're going to be talking about yet, but it is going to be sick. I think it's a safe blind buy. Jordan is an amazing speaker. Everything. And he's also, he has extensive podcast experience too,

but he's also just a great talker and a really interesting guy. So I'm thrilled he'll be joining us for our festive edition. We're homecoming show, festive edition. We couldn't, we couldn't go into the Christmas season without giving you guys a little chance to get together. Because what else will we be doing at that show, Ash? A social. A social.

Like, what else were you going to be doing at that? Throwing presents to the crowd. No, umphetamins. No. Absolutely not. The thought of doing our epitomans makes me really. For a live show, Jesus Christ. That makes me, well, unless it was like Ritalin, but I don't think I need Ritalin.

Or maybe I do, I don't know. Some ADHDs like it, some don't, I don't know. No one get at me in the comments about this. I don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway, you get your tickets from Dice for this one. So it's contact theatre for the Manchester event. It's Dice for the London event. And there will be a social after this one as well.

Okay, now that's done. Moyer, I believe you have some questions for me. I do. Let's get down to fucking business. I need to stop swearing. I say this every episode. How do we do this? When we set New Year's resolutions, one of mine has to be,

somehow I need to Alan Carr, not the comedian, the hypno guy, into myself, and to not swear it. I need to my fillers not to be the word fuck anymore. It's, and sometimes the C word too, That I've been sometimes here, but I'd be turning that air blue. It's, and it's unimaginative, okay? Okay, let me do my questions, though. Number one, which bit and which period of the Roman Empire would you choose to live in?

Your face letter up, I love us. Ooh, okay. So the best time to be a Roman was probably during the Flavian dynasty. And who was that lad? So the Flavian dynasty, you've got Vespasian, you've got Titus, you've got Titus, and that's when the Coliseum gets built. So what had been Nero's huge palace, which was like offensively huge,

which only got to build because like a large part of Rome burnt down and he was like, I'm going to turn this graces. Didn't he fiddle? Into an opportunity. Was that when he was fiddling? He allegedly fiddled or it would have probably been the liar. So that was the time of huge public works probably, probably great to live in Rome

or be part of the... There's the cranes everywhere. But... Yeah, but, but, but I think the most interesting might be immediately after the second Punic War because what happens is, is that Hannibal Barker of Spain, of Carthage, the Hannibal.

The Hannibal. His name was Barker. Hannibal Barker. Hannibal Smith. Hannibal Jones. Sorry, what else? Hannibal Barker. He poses an existential threat to the Romans, an absolutely existential threat.

And because he's so good in battle and he's such an expert strategist, the only way to survive for a really long time is avoiding battle, which becomes known as Fabian tactics. tactics. But then, Scipio Africanus defeats him and defeats him, crucially, not in Sicily and not on the Italian peninsula, but in Carthage itself, which no one was expecting. And it's after this moment, after being taken down to the very wire, that Rome finally defeats its one big rival in the Mediterranean, i.e. Carthage, and then just turns around and obliterate alliterates everything in their path. And I sort of think that that moment of turning around, of having been driven to the edge of possible extinction as an empire.

And then that turnaround and be like, okay, we've defeated Hannibal Barker. We can take on anyone. It would be very interesting. What about you? If there was a historical period, it doesn't just have to be the Romans. No, it's too hard. You also didn't answer the bit where I was like, which part of the empire would you live in during the first?

Oh, which part of the empire? You would have had a really nice living in Spain. You would have a very, very nice living in Spain. Lots of oil of oil, lots of wine, lots of garum, you know, you would live very nicely in Spain. Rome, the city, was really chaotic because it was built before the Romans established themselves as master urban planners. And the reason why their cities and the rest of the empire were so good

was because they based it on the sort of rational lines of the military camp. But Rome itself was very higgledy-piggledy. So Spain you would have a very, very good living. Oh, what am I thinking? Oh, I mean like Alexandria, obviously, obviously, shodunnen, lovely. And where am I thinking? which was in the east. Brains gone.

Begins with an A. But that was... I'm not going to... I'm not going to know. I'm afraid. The Roman period is a big blank to me. I know the tenets. I know the bold out...

the broad outlines. But this is all interesting education. For some reason, it's never grabbed me. And I think that is because when you said what historical period would you live in, unfortunately, I am boring and I'm a modern girl. So 20th century onwards,

that's when I'm really, that's when my juice is really good. I think I'd love to live in a period where people were, it's also like you think about you, like the material considerations of what my life would be like are so bad.

So like if I lived in the Georgian era, I would certainly, I'd either be a servant or if I wanted money, I'd probably have to do a lot of sex work and I'd definitely get syphilis and die, even if I was successful. them's the breaks

I could be a madam but I'd still have to do sex work to be a madam in the first place and the sex, it's not the sex work itself that like worries me so much it's the syphilis and dying that I don't want to do

and there was a lot of syphilis and dying and a lot of, you know, getting locked up in lock hospitals every time you got the syphilis whereas from about the first... You know what you'd be? What? You'd be a phenomenal medieval abyss.

Yes, well this is the thing. Me and Schott are always playing the game of what would you be? be in history and she's always like whore or abbess those are the two choices for any sort of woman who's got a widow get them go being a widow was sick yeah but then you'd have to get married and you have to hope your husband died so I think there are ways and means first well there are ways and means but sometimes you've got caught if you got caught it was it was curtains for you um all I would need is a modern syringe but you don't have that we're in medieval grade okay I'm saying that if I have

the knowledge that I do now. Don't perpetuate another mythological spiking epidemic via syringe. We had that already. I think First World War onwards, when there was a great upheaval and suddenly a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel that maybe gender roles could be changed

and we were allowed to go to work and, you know, campaigning. I think anywhere there was a lot of campaigning where women could actually get involved, involved in it and lead things, where there was the like explosions of literature I think definitely early 20th century mid 20th century

unfortunately interwar periods are quite appealing to me even though they were really bleak because it felt like when the world crumbles around your ears there's potential for change and like new opportunities any times when borders were pretty porous

I love the idea of like the 70s you know the 60s you just like my mum was trekking around all the time in some places the border was very hard like when she went to Berlin But you could get around. Any time that there was the dole, the dole is appealing to me as a concept, proper doll.

Yeah, when things are just a bit more loosey-goosey, but there's still the recognisable structures of modern life. Unfortunately, those are the things that I find most interesting. If I could say some very open borders in the Roman Empire, and there was also a grain allowance. Yeah, but I would be enslaved. No. Really? No, no, no, no, no. Okay, one.

I could pass as a Mediterranean, I guess. No, Roman slavery was not racialized. So true. But what about the women? Okay. We were just slaves. Okay, women, like, didn't have a great time, but there were women who exercised significant political power,

Agrippina the younger. But I'm not, this is the thing, I'm never, when I think about my historical fantasies, I'm never the exception. I'm like, I would just be a servant because of, like maybe this thing in the roman empire i would my my gender would matter and then from the 17th century onwards my ethnicity matters and it matters so much and i mean this would obviously go for you too as well but like it matters so much from that period onwards that until it's

really funny because it's like i i'm colorism is such a thing but it's like i'm so light skin that wouldn't really that doesn't really have any bearing up until like the later modern period Because it's like, you're still, you're still descended from slaves. In ancient Rome, it literally wouldn't matter. What would matter is whether or not they considered you a Roman or not. And the boundaries of what was a Roman, like really, really shifted. Oh, so interesting. Yeah, I should do more questions.

But I think, I think, yeah, I think 1920s for the trousers as well. You could just wear trousers. Oh, God, the fucking trousers. Radford Hall rapping about in their trousers. trousers, ooh. Catherine Hepburn later with the trousers. Trousers have a huge influence on me. Actually, that's a question.

What garment, I'm just saying about the question because this is better. What garment is like the staple thing you build your wardrobe around? I would have to agree with the trouser. The humble trow. The humble, humble trow. Drop trow. What kind? Okay.

thing is there's not just there's not just one kind i like a wider leg trouser obviously but it has to low waist is evil evil and disgusting right i have uh i have like a you know a little poochy belly but i also have a snatched waist so you do both of those things are sort of not highlighted to their their very best potential with a low waist but with a high waist it's like oh hello like so good so the the outfit is built around the trouser most often or um a novelty t mr bill mr bill who made it onto question time did he obviously i don't have a tv so i haven't watched any question time mr bill made it onto question time my brother-in-law was so happy um oh my god did anyone say anything wait wait did anyone say anything about mr bill

Oh yeah, Fiona Bruce made me stand up in front of the audience before we went live and was like, this is her brother-in-law's dog. I'm so glad that you got Mr. Bill on question. And I was like, it doesn't look like a very nice dog. And I was like, how day Mr. Bill is a sweetheart. Can you not see Mr. Bill? Can you not see that he's a precious baby angel? I'm so glad that you put Mr. Bill on question time because you were staying true to yourself and you're wearing what you actually wanted to wear. And that's important.

And it was very comfy. Okay. Next question. My final question. this is sort of like the inverse of my first question what country do you have zero interest in visiting and why I don't think there's any country that have zero interest any country can have interest

I've got loads um okay maybe tell me yours and tell me the reasoning behind it and then Dubai. help actually is one um for both ethical and taste reasons i think it's i it just is the antithesis of everything that i find interesting i see it as the embodiment of bad veneers that's my see it's it's got nothing to do yeah it's got nothing to do with like whether you get you don't get

veneers there you get them in turkey and i love turkey but it's more like I find a, it's a spiritual home of the veneer. It's a spiritual home of the bad veneer, not just like a veneer that's been done badly because it's all just like giant mauls, giant faceless malls and westernized culture imported into like the middle of the desert upheld by slave labor.

And it's, you can get all that at home. You could get all that somewhere else, but we've had to force it into this place. and it appeals to this strange international audience that just has no identity. And that's what I think about a bad veneer. It's like it's not tailored to the mouth. It's just a thing that's done because other people are doing it.

There's been no care and structure put in. It's like just been implanted into someone's mouth and it just sits there awkwardly. It is the embodiment of a bad veneer. Okay, I think you're right. I've got no interest in going to Dubai or Saudi Arabia. Um, like, that's probably it. But what I mean is, is that any country can become interesting,

not necessarily for reasons which are good, but there are interesting things to learn about it. I mean, if you were able to, like, get up close and really understand the political culture of Dubai, that would be interesting. It wouldn't be good. Yeah. Also, obviously, Dubai is a city, but I see it's like,

you know what I mean? City or country or place. Yeah. is also a good one. But yeah, I think anywhere can be interesting, but I have no interest in going. Another one, Australia. No interest. No interest. It doesn't mean there's not interesting places there. I'm going to Australia next year. When? God, why. For work, for work. For work. But I would never have chosen it for myself, mostly because it's

really far and really expensive. And so my sense of what's a worthwhile use of my time is also what's a worthwhile use of my money. But if I'm going for free, you better believe that I'll be making the most of it. But anyway, I want to move on because I have an intrusive thought. Let's go. I'm ready. I'm primed. Okay, so my intrusive thought was inspired by the patron saint of oversharing one Lily Allen herself. So by the time this comes out, her album West End Girl will have been out for a couple of weeks. And if you don't know, it's an album which is kind of, you know, either it's all completely true and it's one of the most viscerally revealing albums in all of history. Or it's

a kind of auto fiction where there are some, you know, lightly fictionalized elements. But But basically it's about the breakdown of her marriage to the actor David Harbour, his alleged infidelities, you know, feeling, railroaded into participating in an open relationship. And one of the things which I think is really, it's consistent in Lily Allen's songwriting is that she will name names, she will put in levels of detail and specificity, which makes you go oofed. You know, she did that with that song,

Alfie, basically being like, my own brother is a stoner, jobless loser. Get that off bed. Yeah. And so why you would cheat on her of all people is just... Yeah, we all remember not fair. We remember that song. We all remember not fair, and it's a banger as well.

I've got a great remix of that. Anyway, go. He says he cheats me with respect. He says he loves me all the time. But I think that it was a, it was an incredible album, it was an incredible listen. I think that lots of people were drawn there for sort of prurian reasons, right? You know, kind of rubber nepking, gawping reasons. But the writing is solid enough to make it more than just a car crash or a vehicle for celebrity gossip.

But it did make me think a little bit about the ethics of that kind of sharing. And I think it's relevant for us and the work that we do on the pod. and I also think that it's relevant for people who are thinking about sending in dilemmas and I think it's relevant for all of us who live in this gossip saturated time. What are the ethics around oversharing? Who the stories really belong to?

And do you still owe privacy and a level of discretion to those who have wronged you? And so I've got a ton of questions for you about it, but maybe the first one would be, have you ever gotten in trouble for bringing something to this podcast? Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Don't describe what got you in trouble. And this is the thing. I can't say what got me to trouble. And if I say how I got into trouble, then that will also give some of the gameway. But I talked about a situation and the person was like, oh, I heard you were talking about this and said that a member of their family had listened. and been like therapeutically diagnosed me with several things. I was like, why is this elder generation of your family this in this podcast?

Who would send, well, so it wasn't actually an egregious thing, I don't think. It was just the sheer fact that they knew that I was mentioning something in relation to them. And that is the difficulty because the more, the more. Modern ecosystem, we exist in like podcasts, TikToks, Instagram, personal essays. We've talked about this with Sophie Gilbert. They are all built upon disclosure and sharing intimate details of a life. And the juiciest stories that get the most traction usually involve other people. Because there's only so far you can go with yourself.

People are rubbernecking. And I know this because it's like my substack. know which posts get the most traction and what people are looking for from them. It's always sex and relationships. Oh, yeah. If I mention a breakup, oh my God, you would not believe the amount of subs that you get. It's... It's embarrassing, though.

I get embarrassed by it, because I'm like, this is cheap and we should be better than this, but none of us are. And so when you are, you're constantly oscillating between, like, how much do I share? And when you tell a story, how do I frame it? because I know there's a way I could frame it that would really make this very shareable, make people re-listen. And there's another way I frame it which would probably be more ethical. And in the long term, I wouldn't feel grubby about.

What do you prize more? It's a real toss-up. And I think the more that people overshare, there is an addiction to that. You have to double down on it. I saw a girl the other day on TikTok, this young, very, very rich TikToker, talking about how much she regrets saying so she has this boyfriend and she broke up with this boyfriend ages ago when they're 22 they're now back together and when they broke up she came on the internet and she told everyone that he said that she wasn't the love of his life and now

she's like that haunts me because now I'm back with him and that people throw that in my face that he said that to me he's like but he was 22 like you didn't know anything it's like I don't care what that was true or not the fact is that she regrets so much that that is out there and I think that's something that we come back to again and again and again in, you know, the oversharing, like, be careful what you say because it's out there forever. But on another level, people just don't actually believe that. Like, there's an infirmality.

Am I saying that right? To what we consume and the way we consume it, so we're like, oh, it actually doesn't stick in your mind forever. So it's fine. And no one's going to care about this forever. I'm trying to have anything that's haunted me forever. It hasn't. The thing with oversharing is there is a person who was in my life.

where oversharing really or sharing at all really has affected our dynamic and even if if they had me talking about this they'd be mad I think and it has created but blood so bad and miss T Swift couldn't even write about it well like I want to that's about control of narrative I guess like I'm I'm still thinking a little bit about West End girl because let's think about that I've got because there is um a line in let you win which which is about her wrestling with how much does she protect her children from the truth of what happened? How much does she protect her former partner from being exposed? And she has this one line which goes, I can leave with my dignity if I lay my truth on the table. And I was

like, so for her, she's like, this is what it means to leave with my, leave with my dignity, is that I've got to put it all out there. I've got to lay it out. And I initially misheard the lyric. I initially misheard the lyric as I can, my dignity if I leave my truth on the table and I was like and for me that was kind of it spoke to me more it resonated with me more because I thought it was about this this relationship between secrecy and dignity and that you know she has a choice between preserving her dignity or or being her authentic self and and being true to her voice as an artist and so the real version was less interesting to me

and the misheard one, I still think that should be the lyric. Because I do think that there's something there's something there's something there. And I think it's also, you know, a podcast isn't an album. And I think that for truly great albums, you have to leave it all on the pitch. Do you know what I mean? Like you have to like be willing to burn your life and burn your relationships and expose the most hunted. and haunted and difficult aspects of yourself to make great work.

Like I think, especially for songwriting of the kind that Lily Allen does. And this is the thing which, you know, inevitably Taylor Swift gets brought into it because she's seen quite widely as someone who, you know, brings in all these aspects of her personal life, but I think she pretties it up and she neatens it up.

And it's very inherent to her style of writing, how she stylises things, is that that has an obscuring effects as well. Whereas Lillianna will be like, okay, here are the text messages. Now I'm going to read them out. Or here are things which may be the text messages, which I'm going to read out. And I think that Lillian would be the more difficult person to live with, but she's the better artist because of it. Whereas I think with this podcast, I want to still be someone good to live with.

Yeah, I think both of them would be quite difficult. to live with. If you actually listen to Taylor-Swiss lyrics, she's doing the same thing as Lily, but just not as a debtly. Like she's not, she's literally writing very detailed lyrics about people who are very easily identifiable, like Matty Healy. If you listen to, I know what I'm going to say she's like, I want to sick the. Yeah, but she's doing that, she does that with ever, but she does that with all of them. Like, she did that with Dear John. She did that with Jake Gyllenhaal and all too well and then like a lot of the red album uh people think she does it about harry stars but i disagree that was a PR relationship um she does it about joe owen she's much nicer about him

but there's a lot of things where she's like you kept me waiting for six years you robbed my life you were so depressed it bummed me out um and then matty healy she's like you took all these drugs and fell asleep and you know you were small you ghosted me like she writes the same lyrics she has the same levels of detail in some places. It's not as raw as Lily's because Lily is the better writer and it's funny because they're both people who can't sing. So the lyrics really do have

to matter and Taylor, yeah, Taylor is kind of in the same thing. I was thinking when you were talking about other artists who write very raw about their lives but you might not necessarily always know who it's about. I put Lana Dalry in here. Like

oh, she writes so raw with so much detail and yet there's only vague whisperings about who these these songs could be about um joanie mitchell kind of although we do know who like you know yeah richard and stuff is about uh stevie nix as well sometimes falls into this there's like some songs which are very obviously about certain people and then other songs we're like this could have been an amalgamation of different people like well i mean sarah is obviously about mickflewood and sarah but if we're getting into it the rumours album like it is a raw album

about relationship breakdown and betrayals of trust and different songs are attempts to pin the blame on the very person who is laying down the vocal. I mean, go your own way versus dreams as these two like total titans of music but both are trying to establish the narrative of what went wrong. But in those songs,

unless you knew the backstory behind it, you would have no idea who they're actually about. like I think that's also the context and whereas with Lily Allen as well it's like it's difficult because if she was married to someone you didn't know would would it have the same like I don't I don't know like would we think she's oversharing but then she's always been oversharing like her autobiography about her marriage to Sam Cooper this is another ironic thing about this album and I'm not saying women can't do wrongs and then share things but it is funny how surprised she was by this

and who David Harbour turned out to be because I don't think Lily is someone who, again, I'm getting parisocial because she's allowed me to be parisocial through creating this work. But she married someone who has a history of getting engaged after a year and then those relationships exploding, which already is like quite a, you know, like that's a sign. Someone has a pattern of having like three fiancés

that they got engaged to within a year and then never gets married. There's something going on there. Her previous marriage, she wrote about very explicitly in her autobiography where she cheated on him with multiple people, both sex workers and just random people on tour. And it's...

Liam Gallagher. Liam Gallagher, but also like just engineers, you know, random people of all genders. And she was kind of like... It's kind of presenting quite like an empowered way in the autobiography, which is funny. And then you get to this song and she's obviously so broken,

but I wonder how much self, and maybe this is the internal book, like how much self-reflection is going on about why she would be drawn to a man like David Harbour? And I've been reading the interviews around it and she's still like, oh, it's very sad because I lost my person, I'm very codependent. It doesn't seem like there's much reckoning with the forces

that pushed her into this pattern of behaviour again and again and again, both to perpetuate it and also be attracted to people who do it. There's a little bit of it. There's a little bit of it on fruity loops where she's sort of, of talking about the emotional stuntedness of this partner who's constantly looking for validation and, you know, all the rest of it. And then she sort of describes herself as looking for daddy. But when you think that this is like a, you know, 14 track album and she's absolutely excoriating on the experience of betrayal and every single gory detail, which I think

also rings really true to the experience of being cheated on, which is there is this sort of voyeurism, you know, this like need to like see and experience and feel like every little facet of the betrayal. Like there's 14 tracks of that and there's very little of her trying to make sense of well, what drew me into this relationship. Yeah, because they got married within a year. Yeah. They got married within,

I, again, banque generalisation, but I really think when you rush into relationships like that, I've also put my wavelength theory

forward before, which is you attract people on your wavelength. If you're attracting a cracked out person, you are a cracked out person, I'm sorry to say. When I have been

at my most cracked out, crashing out, whatever you want to call it, that is when I've attracted like-minded people. When I'm at my most guarded, I attract the most guarded people you you they people are mirrors of you your relationships are mirrors of you and how you

put yourself out into the world and again lily puts ourselves out into the world so openly i do feel quite confident in saying there was a harmony between her and david harbour they like he was giving interviews when they were going out saying she was basically like i love you on the first date um and was like i want to be with you that's that's two people who have similar ways of going about things, recognising each other. And in her last relationship, she was David Harbour. She wrote about it. She's talked about it.

And in this relationship, she was Sam Cooper. And it's really interesting, the thing that she talks about validation, wanting daddy. She doesn't just want daddy because otherwise she wouldn't share all of this with us. Every person who shares to this degree, and I include myself sharing stuff on the internet, we are looking for validation of something. There is something inside us that means that we, have not been able to self-soothe enough that we need to share these stories

and look for validation from a much wider audience. I think that's really, really true and maybe what I'd add to it is having thought about what you said is that when people overshare, and I'm not just talking about in music or in art or in writing, but I'm also thinking about

within my own life, right? Because there are times where I've done it, there are times where it's been done to me where someone is just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is that that's often a sign that they don't understand themselves very well. And so they want to keep revealing and disclosing as if it's going to, like, move something on, or as if, like, by scratching that itch, the sort of, like, undelying cause is going to, like, shift or change or be transformed in some way. And it never happens. It never, ever happens. And that's because there is something that's really fundamentally

missing in their understanding of themselves. And what they, what, and this is the thing which, like, oversharers get wrong is that they think that by inviting other people to form an opinion or a judgment of the person who in the story has wronged them, that it's going to make them feel understood, but it doesn't. It's sometimes not even another person who's wrong with them. Like, Emily Gould, for example, my pinnacle, my queen of oversharing, I love her so much, this not a slight, but she'll offer, she's often the villain in her own stories and it still doesn't seem to be in peace. I actually have a question for you, which is when do you think sharing tips

into oversharing? Ooh, okay, so I think that oversharing is a quality that's determined really more by the internal process of the person doing the sharing than the content itself, all right? So between me and my partner, is there such a thing as oversharing? Like, I think maybe if I gave him like a breakdown of my toilet activities or something, we would say this is oversharing.

But thinking about our feelings or experiences, it's very difficult to think about, you know, what would be overshares. sharing, I can imagine being dysregulated around him, right? And so like I'm speaking from a place of emotional dysregulation, but in terms of the content itself, toilet stuff aside, it's difficult to have it be defined by the content. And there are certain people in my life who, you know, we've talked about like the volcanoes, right? And I've got a few volcanoes in my family where it's sort of like it builds and it builds and it builds. And then suddenly someone's

ringing you up and they're like screaming and crying down the phone and you're like how did this come to be um and it's because none of the boomers thought therapy was for them guess what they were wrong but like both the content and how it's being communicated is coming from a sort of place of of compulsion um and there is no real balance or integration that's achieved between what it is they want to say and their consideration of how it might be received. So sometimes you've got like the volcano who's just like, blah-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-trauma.

And then sometimes, like, and I've seen this happen with people in my own life, and this is probably something that I do as well, which is go, trauma, oh no, I'm so sorry, you didn't want to hear that. Trauma-trauma, trauma. Oh, no, what am I doing? But, blah, blah, trauma. But you see, like, those two things really, like,

aren't integrated. Like, it's sort of like, blah. But, like, it's very, very staccato in that way. So that's, that's for me how I would identify oversharing. Like, there are signs of it and how someone's coming across, but it's very about that internal process and what's driving them. I don't know. How would you define oversharing?

I do think, I totally agree with you. I think it's contextual. Like the other day, sometimes, like the other day, for example, me and my best friend were talking about toilet, toilet. And I was like, I'm so glad we've got to this level. you can talk toilet like it's just great it's just so you know you're like I don't have anyone else to talk toilet too and I'm so glad I could do it again um so toilet is also something that I'm actually not I don't actually think is that oversharing

because I think it's such a biological thing that I'm a bit like it's not this really raw or something to be raw or depends what happens it's not it's not like this really emotional thing. So listeners, I'm trying to jump out of the window as we speak. Some people are just not toilet people and I grew up in a toilet family so. Yeah, I'm not a toilet person. Yeah, toilet. One of my other best friends is so anti-toilet, specifically anti-scat.

She cannot hear about poo. She's really anti-pooh. Me and her. Yes. Yeah, aligned. But, so I don't see toilets as an emotional thing. What I see and I know is like that person and I've been. been that person in the past. Luckily, I don't think I'm this person anymore who at parties,

as you say, will just come up and you'll say something like, oh, how was your day? And I'll be like, oh, well, this thing happened. Or you'll be talking about something and like X's and where everyone I was making like a light X joke, suddenly they'll go deep on the law about their X. And recently I'd met someone who was like, wow, I'd forgotten what it's like to get trauma dumped on like that. Wow. My God. And you're just kind of sat there like, you know that meme of Miss Juicy, where she's like this. Yeah, yeah. On the sofa.

I'm always like Miss Juicy, like, because you don't know what to do, like, oh, okay. And I've learned, obviously, you don't actually need to even offer advice. That's not what they're there for. They don't even re-see you. You're there to just be a body who is absorbing what is being said. But I think oversharing is, I was out with someone recently who started telling a story. And then suddenly they went, well, they were going to answer a question. and they went, actually, you've not earned enough XP for that level.

And I was like, I respect you so much for doing that because they'd stopped themselves from oversharing and recognised the level of intimacy we'd built, which was not much. Like, we'd only seen each other like twice. And it was very like, respect. Like, you're not trying to speed run this and you understand like what level of intimacy. is healthy for an appropriate.

I think it's about appropriateness, like you say. What is appropriate situation? You can just kind of feel in your gut when it's not appropriate. I can feel in my gut when I've said something that's not appropriate and I'd be like, oh, this is awkward, what I do now. I mean, like, I think it's one of those things

which is I really ruminate on that. So I'm not saying I don't do it. Obviously, I do it because everyone does it. But I am such a huge ruminator on like if I feel I've overshared or done something a bit weird. And like even really small things. So like I was really, really,

tired last night and my neighbor came around to like collect a parcel and I just completely forgot how to talk like I just completely forgot how to have a normal interaction and I was so bizarre and as she was leaving I was just like don't worry I'll enjoy my brain injury goodbye like I didn't know how to like and like none of the jokes that I was making was making it any better and I've yeah because you didn't need to make jokes that's the thing I felt dreadful. You're anxious thing is you go to jokes. Oh, yeah.

Same, same, same. Thanks for that, Dr. Freud. Same though. My therapist is now like, I'm only allowed to ruminate on things for 10 minutes, by the way, which is a good trick. It says you can have 10 minutes of rumination and then you have to just cut it.

Then you have to be like, I've had my 10 minutes for the day. Screen lock. No more on this. My housemate and my partner did a really good thing. They bounced between them seven ways in which it could have been worse. that's really practical look at that look at that look at that practicality

that's that's the movement building there I want to I want to come back to I guess like vulnerability is what happens when you express them because also I do think about this podcast in a less than impulsive way right like I try not to be impulsive and I try to think about what are aspects of like things that I've experienced which are useful contributions to like if I speak community or to a conversation and so there's there's some stuff which I don't talk about like it doesn't mean it's not like interesting or

politically meaningful whatever I'm like I don't because it hasn't gone through the sort of like you know the calibration process or like calculation process of like would this be painful for other people to hear do I actually want people to know this about me like is this something which I'd be all right with if people threw back in my face would anything? and be likely to do so, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, like, how do you make that calculation? Well, exactly the same. It's something I've actually written about, almost substack.

Or missubstack. On my substack, where I was talking about personal essays and writing personal essays and how you decide what to put a personal essay. And in the past, it was kind of everything and anything from as I was experiencing it to, I remember one time I, this wasn't even a person. it's a magazine, I got in trouble with a partner because I wrote about having HPV

just as like an aside and it was actually a joke. I'd done it as a joke and they were like, you didn't tell me you had HPV. Ooh. I was like, everyone has HPV. There were three of us in that relationship. No. It was a bit crowded.

So it's a bit crowded. Everyone actually just... Oh my God, I'm sorry. Queen over sharer. what Diana oh yes oh yeah but obviously she was that's a person who's very lost and needed validation and constantly needed you know reassurance was very anxious and oversharing is anxiety it comes from anxiety but the line as I said like you were talking about is it useful and in the essay that I wrote about personal essays use the word essay too many times I was weighing up why there was a particular

narrative that I just couldn't find it in myself to write, even though it's a really good story. And it's the story of one of my big breakups. And it was coincided, and I've talked about it a bit, because I think it's fine to talk about it. It coincided me traveling around Western Europe on my own in trailing for like a couple of weeks. And it was really cinematic. Lots of stuff happened. It was a great period of realization and growth and heartbreak. and I just can't write it. And I was like, why can't I write it? And the reason is to write it down would be

I would have to craft it into a narrative including lots of details that are not just mine to tell and a perspective that I don't actually think is that useful. It would be very self-indulgent. It would be definitely fun to read, but there's not much you can take from that story other than I was very sad for a bit.

I was also excited for the future and relieved as the other party was. as well. It is not a particularly useful story. So I just haven't been able to write it because I can't. The good it would do and the usefulness, the value it has does not outweigh the pain it would cause to the other party and does not, it doesn't justify itself. I think that's it. The sharing does not justify itself. And like you said, when I think about the stories that I share, I'm like, does this sharing justify itself? Sometimes I get that wrong. sometimes it doesn't but when you're writing as a person who's maybe got a few more years

on my 25 year old self it is you do have more of an instinct or should at least I hope developed an instinct about what justifies itself and what doesn't and I gave some advice to someone the other day they were like oh I want to write about this thing but I don't really write person I was like the thing is you have to wait before you write like if something has just happened don't put it in to an essay I think point podcast, kind of similar, but because you're talking about stuff, there's a way you can fudge it. With an essay and writing, the devil is really in the details. Like the thing that elevates it from just being good to great or even being bad to good is detail

and the way you deploy that. And it doesn't mean you have to put every detail in. In fact, usually it means taking a lot out. But you have to include that detail and that shape and that narrative. And that requires disclosing a lot more than maybe you're in a podcast where you can just gesture at something. You have to tell the story. So when you're writing about things that are really raw and personal, you have to wait because you don't really know how you feel about them.

You don't know how the dust is settled. And you don't know how you feel about them in like six months. Things really change and you get different perspectives. And that's when you can maybe see, oh, does this justify itself? But you have to take time. I've got one last question before we move on to Dilemon. No, no, no, but I have a question for you. And the question is this. It's the first one that I asked really, which is do you owe privacy and discretion? And basically, some form of protection to those who you feel have really profoundly wronged you? It's such a good question.

And I'm a bit like, it depends. If it's somebody who has done you a criminal wrong and by disclosing you are somehow helping survivors, you know, there's a precedent being set, a legal precedent or something like that or you're going to court. I think there is nothing owed to that person.

And it's not even about owed to that person. It's owed to yourself. Does it actually make it better for you to disclose? Because 99% of the time, I think when I've gone into too much detail about something or someone, it has caused more distress for me. And often the people who have really wronged me are not the kind of people who, when you write about it,

they take it lying down. And it's made matters. So it's not really that I think I owe them anything. It's more like I think, does this build my self-respect? Does this build my resilience? And I think oversharing is an, as I said, an anxious response. And often holding stuff back and just sharing it with the people around me builds more confidence in myself and, you know, confidence in my narrative.

As oversharing, I tend to think, means that I don't have confidence in my narrative. I don't, I need that extra validation. I need the extra enforcement, like, yeah, you're right, you're this. It's not always healthy. So it's less about whether I think I owe them anything. It's more about what do I think I owe myself. I don't know. What do you think?

Well, I think that it's an anxious form of revenge. And that is an uncomfortable marriage. Because anxiety is about the desire for validation. Revenge is obviously the desire for punishment, right? And you're thinking of punishment as a form of justice. for revenge to be really good, I'm not sure if it can come from an anxious place, right, as a student of vengeance studies. I'm not sure it can. And so these two things are kind of incompatible. And so I view West End girl as an exercise in revenge that comes in the guise of oversharing and comes in the guise of it's my story and it's my pain. But, But obviously it's not, it's not just that. Again, I think that's what makes it compelling, right,

is because it is a revenge album, it makes it compelling. I think in our day-to-day lives, we probably do still owe something of privacy, discretion, and protection to those who've profoundly wronged us. Because the thing about, it's so easy to pull from things, to use it to justify something you want to do. So for instance, the disclosures of like the Me Too era, it's easy to then use that to justify your own desire for vengeful over sharing because you go, well, you know, these women couldn't get justice in any other way. And so all they had was the power of their own disclosure. And then, you know, people will start talking about the statistics in our own criminal justice system, blah, blah, blah. That becomes a reason. And I'm not saying that that isn't driving people, but let's also agree that it's a response to a feeling of violation and degradation, that you then want to destroy the reputation of somebody else.

I'm not saying that that's immoral. It's a part of the human condition and it requires understanding. And I'm not even saying don't do it. I'm just saying understand that that's where you're coming from. And this is why I'm not against revenge, right? You just have to know when you're doing it and be real with yourself. I just have one last question for you, which is, what do you actually think is the best revenge? I wish listeners could see seriousness with which Ash is cheating on this question. She, she went and put her hand on her chest and was like, the thought. The Roman emperor was activated. This is my Scorpio moon.

You know, I'm giving up on astrology. I know, I know, I know. You can talk to me about it, but I've got to let it wash anything. One of us has to be a, you know, faffy little airhead and it's going to be me. I'm just trying to detox. Like, you know that it's like doing cocaine. It's like, you're offering me the bag and I'm not taking a bump.

No bumps. Okay. But everyone else can have a bump. The greatest form of revenge is where only the target of your revenge knows that it happens and nobody else does. So it's like an elevated form of reading. Because they cannot even draw

the comfort of other people's sympathy or other people's validation that their experience has happened. So the perfect revenge, in my view, has to be perfectly isolating. It's a form of exile. God, you're evil. That's cool. Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

I think about this stuff. What about you? Perfect revenge before we move on. My perfect revenge is complete, the illusion of complete apathy and immeasurable success and also being so magnanimous whenever that person's name is brought up,

whenever, you know, all you do outwardly is you wish them the very best. Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper. It's your paper, exactly. Always stay gracious. Your best revenge is your paper. And you just, you think about the thing that they hate most about you. and often for me it's success and you just keep doing that

and you make sure it doesn't rot you from the inside but there's a little part of you or it takes great delight or you count of Monte Cristo that shit that's so complicated that takes so long no but that's the thing is that don't go I think the advice that I would give

to special ones is don't go off on a revenge plot half cocked if you do it it must be perfect Before they wake in the morning, you must have the axe in your hand. Oh, yes. What is that from again? It's from Bring Up the Bodies. Did you quote that to me the other day or did someone else?

I did. I did. I was here, it's a, it's a, I was like, it can't be too Hilary Mantel quote. Two random people of Hilary Mantel. Because someone else was talking to me about, awful, the other day. Got a lot of Hilary Mantel, that was in my life. Anyway, should we move on? Should we move on?

Okay. Yeah, I keep forgetting we've got a dilemma. I was like, we're done. We're never done. This is our regular dilemma's segment, and if you have a dilemma, if you wish to bring it to the pod, email it to if I speak at navaramedia.com.

That's if I speak at navaramedia.com. I'm going to read it out because I think that you're going to have really good advice for this, and you should go first. I don't know if I will. They're gone. Dear, if I speak, dedicated special one here, been a listener since day one, many thanks for all the shared wisdom.

I recently found myself in a friends with benefits situation ship with a woman who had avoidant tendencies. She was the first to admit these tendencies. We had a, what attachment type are you conversation fairly early on? I'm mostly leaning into the anxious avoidant type. I notice real triggers when I am seeing avoidant people, though. We both found ourselves in this situation where we would semi-accidentally be going on holiday to the same island at the same time. Not together, but separately, her with a friend, myself solo. For me, the trip was a long one with the intention of self-reflection, long walks

by the beach and the processing of childhood trauma, which I'm privileged enough to be getting professional help with on a weekly basis. I had been in relative solitude for a month before her arrival. I think what happened during this time is that I had a ton of very deep, buried emotions come to the surface as I was doing my best to purge them from my body and heal. Her arrival threw this process off a bit. We met for a drink when she arrived. She was staying with her friend. I fucked up.

A lot of my traumas around rejection bubbled right up to the surface, and there was a particular trigger of revolving around her and her friend going to a party which I was not welcome to. Anyway, I lost my shit emotionally. She was understandably wanting to distance herself from the mess that was my trauma, and surprisingly not stepping into the mothering role which I was subconsciously trying to fill. we didn't message for a week and then the day before she was due to spend a few days with me

she said she was not feeling sexual with me anymore and we could hang out as friends whilst this was not what I wanted I agreed perhaps partly due to hoping she would change her mind which has happened a few times but also due to the fact I didn't want her to feel this was all about sex because it's not for me spending three days with someone you've just had a form of breakup with was super tough

conversations kept circling back to me attempting to apologise as for the initial case of being a mess on day one of the holiday. But ultimately, this resulted in me being a mess on every evening of the holiday. We said goodbye yesterday. She said there hasn't been lasting damage, but who knows? Either way, I'd like to avoid this again. I'm actively working on fixing my shit and totally understand it's not her responsibility. But how can I avoid this in the future?

And what would you to have done if you were stuck on an island with a friends with benefit that triggered your attachment issues? Deepest thanks for a troubled special one. what island is this sounds very sexy why can I go to the sexy friends with benefit you fucking heard this and you what sounds sexy I was like where's this sexy friends with benefits triggering island

and does Richard Branson own it I want to go to Trigger Island let's go I want to go to Trigger Island Okay, you said I'd have good advice and that was wrong because this is a tangled, messy little dilemma because it comes from a tangled, messy little mind and that is not a thing to be ashamed of per se. I think there's a lot of shame in this dilemma, I get it.

You're like, I fucked up and then I kept fucking up. I kept stepping on rakes and they kept hitting me in the face on Trigger Island. It's a dangerous place. There's booby-traps everywhere. It's a dangerous place. I think you're pathologising yourself too much and I think that you're acting from a place of self-awareness but not discipline, control or change.

Ash is doing, well done, fingers and I love that. I love it when you do that. I feel so my praise kink gets activated. And this comes straight from my therapist. She says to me a lot that I can intellectualize my emotions and I can explain them and I can feel them in my head but I don't actually feel them in my body or process them and that means that you're constantly able to explain your behaviour

but you're not actually changing the behaviour which is a key thing I got from your dilemma so after that first initial situation you're like you've gone there to reflect and think but as soon as you're triggered then you just lead into that primal reaction and they've made a mess okay fine

fuck it you've made a mess it's okay we all make messes but rather than step away from that situation and recognise that you need space and also try and work out really feel like okay I'm triggered how do I really unpack that

not just think about it like how do I change that reaction that I'm having or how do I react differently in another time you go back in you're like put me back in again Sarge

I'm ready to go and guess what you get shot down in a hail of bullets immediately and then you do it again the next night. So it's like consistently you're like wanting to be, I'm mixing so many metaphors, but like consistent you're like,

Shuck me again. Give me another one. I can take it. And then you couldn't take it. And that's okay. Like how can your body take it when you're being triggered loads? You're not having any repair or recovery time. And then you're just like, let's go back.

So you're stuck in this cycle of mess, bungal repair, mess again as you feel ashamed about the bungled repaired, bungal repair, going round and round and then the only way you escape is when you both leave the island. I don't have prescripted advice for you because I think you need to work out first properly, like properly sit with your therapist and your feelings and step away from the situation.

Like, why are you in this situation in the first place if you know that these situations are really triggering for you? And I don't think it's the sense of like whether you're anxious avoidant or avoidant. It's like clearly a situation with a lack of clarity and a lack and like a vagueness around what you are and what you're responsible for and like, you know, what you'd be invited.

you wanted to be invited to that party because you wanted to feel wanted. And when there is... And the only reason that you weren't sure of being wanted, I think, is because you have a vague situation with this person, it's a friends with benefits thing. So it's like, what am I actually entitled to? What am I actually included with?

I don't know if they want me. I'm just going to... I'm not going to ask, I'm just going to go off these signs. Like, I'm invited to this party. I've not been invited this party. I'm not welcome to this party. There's obviously stuff around there. And rather than, like, you know,

step away from the situations and think... and, like, actually work on, your own feelings of insecurity and how rejection affects you, you're just kind of like, well, I'm going to go back in and I'm just going to see if it's different this time. And because I'm aware of it means that it's fine and I'm working on it. But it doesn't necessarily, those two don't actually necessarily align. Something I've had to learn the hard way.

Ash. I think that everything you said is fucking great. And I'm just going to add some little things. Yay. One is, why did you choose this ambiguous situation? because it's absolutely screaming to me from your email that what you want is to feel chosen, to feel wanted, to feel valued, and to feel regardless of whether or not you want to commit to them, that someone wants to commit to you and establish a really strong bond with you.

So why did you choose an ambiguous situation ship on Friends with Benefits Island, right? New BBC show just dropped. Friends and Benefits Code. Like, why did you, why did you choose that? That's the thing that you have to understand. It's not about I'm anxious and they're avoiding, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because guess what? In a friends with benefit situation, someone is always avoidant, right?

It's a nature, it's the nature of the structure. You can't pathologize it to the person. So ask yourself, why did you participate? in creating this ambiguous situation. And I think you'll get to where you need to go. The second thing is, ho, ho, you think I haven't been on Trigger Island? You think I haven't been on Trigger Island

with friends with benefits and all sorts of blah, blah, blah. My friend I too have been in my 20s. Do you think they're in their 20s? Do you think they're in their 20s? It seems a little bit like it. All I'm saying is, I've been on the island. Yeah, go.

You've been on the island. island. I've been on the island. And the thing is, is that part of why I was on the island is because I loved agony. I loved agony and it made me feel alive. And the feeling of the rake just cleaving my medulla in half was like, I feel alive. And to be honest, I look back on all of those things and I feel really glad I did them. I never want to do them again as long as I live. But I feel glad that I did. I feel glad that I like raw dogged life in that way before my fucking

you know frontal lobe was fully developed and I created these ambiguous situations which were enormous tests of discipline and resilience and all the rest of it and I walked backwards into them because I think that's a part of growing up

I just don't think you can stay there well it's only a holiday isn't it get off the island and you've got to get the first boat of your mistake was to stay on the island you needed after the first mess you needed to be like actually we shouldn't see each other get the ferry yeah but you need

because you thought you'd messed up you obviously were craving affirmation that you were you hadn't messed up whereas actually what you used to do would make the decision for yourself that you were going to step away from the situation you know what one of my favourite phrases is One of my favorite phrases And I find it really helpful Because I'm a ruminator

And I'm like What if I just go back and try and fix it Right? You know, I'm one of those people. Chalk it up to the game. You know, chalk it up to the game. We have different taxes. We call them different taxes.

So my friend, she loses stuff all the time. She calls it a life tax. She's like, it's a life tax. I just have to not think about it. It's a life tax. So like when you emotionally have a, you know, a fuck up or a... When you emotionally shit the bed?

when you mostly shit the bed you can just say it's a game tax it's a trigger tax it's a trigger tax that's my trigger tax that's the tax of getting triggered and if you don't want to pay that tax anymore

move off the fucking island you're non-dom right end of the tax jokes let's wrap this up remember guys you can come see our live shows 25th of November 1st of December you can see all of this in person

oh my God I need to sort of out 16th of December 16th December, sorry, I lied. I need to get an outfit. I decided what we're wearing. I want the baby tea with if I speak embossed on it. I'm going to come dressed as the grink. Is the grink there on your ground?

I'm so glad you know that. I said that yesterday. I tried like explaining the grink to my husband and my housemate. And they looked at me like I was having a fucking stroke. Yeah, of course I know the grink. As someone who makes many typos, I've been grinked multiple times, right? Okay, goodbye from us on Tregor Island. Bye. Bye.