Do You Have A Case Of The TMIs?

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When you’re sad, do you find yourself leaping over your journal to get to your computer, signing into Facebook, and letting it all pour out onto your Facebook status? When you and your significant other get in a fight, do you find yourself scanning the Internet for relevant and morbid songs with poignant subliminal messages to re-tweet? Are you Chief Keef, or someone who posts Instagrams with a similar lack of discretion? And finally, have you ever experienced a Saturday night where you went out hoping to get laid and came home having only fucked yourself? Then welcome, come on in! Oh, don’t be shy! You just got yourself a case of the TMIs.

I can spot a case of the TMIs from miles away—a talent that doesn’t seem to be unrelated to my own tendency to TMI the shit out of everything and everyone I know.

And to be honest, I never considered my case a serious one until a couple months ago when I visited my doctor. Went a little something like this:

Doctor: “How are you feeling?”
Me: “Good! Oh. No, wait. Badddd. Nervous? I get these bouts of anxiety I can’t quell and well, a prescription for Xanax would be great and I’ll be on my merry way thank you!”

Verdict? Denied.

You see: poor judgment on my part led me—only a few months prior—to be completely honest with him. It seems my case of the TMIs got the best of me (once again) and I told my doctor that I was feeling “dependent” on Xanax to go to bed at night; that I didn’t “trust” myself with it; and that if I ever come to him in the future “asking for more,” to please not give me any. In other words, I fucked myself. I TMI-d. Big time.

Perhaps you’re wondering right now how to differentiate a TMIer from simply an over-talker. Well, contingent on TMI syndrome is the ability to make those around you feel uncomfortable. For instance, did I make my coworkers feel uneasy when I burst into tears at my desk and then mumbled something about being dumped, all on my first day of work? You betchya.

But you also shouldn’t sell yourself short—if you’re a true TMIer you’ll make it uncomfortable for yourself too, if not during your TMI vomit then afterwards, in hindsight. “Day 3 of my new job and everyone already knows I’m a pothead,” I jotted down in my journal. Why did they know? Because I told them, obvi. Does this, in retrospect, fill me with regret and discomfort? It certainly does.

Everyone’s case of the TMIs is borne out of different desires and temperaments. For instance, Chief Keef’s seems to be rooted in braggadocio:
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Whereas mine, by contrast, stems from a desire to make others laugh. So I’ll do things like talk about my pubes or my mustache way too often. You know, casual things like that.

But perhaps the most crucial element to an expert TMIer is an IDGAF-kind-of-attitude. A case in point? This article I wrote on why Jewish boys are the least dateable boys. I couldn’t have done this without my IDGAF level, which has stuck by my side, staying at an all-time high, thank you boo. But as I mentioned above, it’s not all fun and games, and if you TMI like a good little girl then something—ANYTHING—is bound to come back and bite your little tush. After writing my Jewish boys article, I’ve come face-to-face with a disproportionate number of dateable Jewish males (and no, this does not include any of the disgruntled Jewish boys who contacted me) and well, lucky for me, they all read my article. Long story long, I TMI-d. And I’m still single.