Be more vulnerable! Always try to dig deeper when expressing yourself

Something that I’ve been trying to do recently in getting to know myself better is understanding why exactly I might like doing certain things or have certain interests on a more personal, emotional level. And in the process, I’ve realized that doing so can help me improve my connections with people as well. Imagine I’m talking to someone about my interests. I like movies (true). I might say:

*I like watching movies. It’s fun seeing exciting stories unfold and relating to interesting characters.*

And that would be a perfectly fine statement. But instead of just that, I could dig deeper and say something like:

*I like movies. I started really becoming immersed in movies when I was in high school. Back then, there wasn’t much that was special about me or that was particularly exciting in my life. I wasn’t especially involved in activities and hadn’t ventured far outside my town. Life felt very dull and I felt as if I hadn’t experienced much. I spent a lot of time daydreaming about what life would be like in different scenarios and from different perspectives. Movies became more and more meaningful to me because they offered me this ability, for a couple hours at a time, to pretend I was in those scenarios, to feel excitement, devastation, triumph, agony. To be transported to exotic settings and times of the past and future, to meet and cheer on and cry for characters like they were my own friends. And it really made life less dull and more colorful. Whether it was watching Tom fight his way back to life in* 500 Days of Summer *or Anton Chiggurh on his ruthless hunt in* No Country for Old Men, *it felt as if I had lived out those experiences and grew from their lessons despite just being an awkward suburbanite teenager who rarely left his town. Everyone wants to feel important, to be a part of something exciting, and movies gave that to me at a time when I felt trapped. And although now my life is a little more exciting and I have more freedom, those couple hours every so often still remind me of the unlimited stories and possibilities in life, and how once teenaged me so desperately hoped for those opportunities and experiences.*

Not only does this inform someone more about my past experiences and outlook on life, it also displays vulnerability and shows that I can think more deeply about things beyond their superficial nature. But perhaps more importantly, it offers something that others can relate to even if they don’t care for movies. Whereas in the first statement, I really only genuinely interest someone if they enjoy movies as well (typically people who don’t share your interests might be curious just out of politeness), the second statement can relate to people on a more emotional level. You might not care for movies or have even heard of any of the ones I mentioned, but you probably have felt trapped at some point and wished for a more exciting or better life, maybe even using interests other than movies as an escape. This opens the door to more interesting and deeper connections.

And you also don’t have to always make a whole speech around everything you say. The point is that you challenge yourself to understand and express yourself in a more vulnerable, baser level. I could have just as easily accomplished the above points by saying something like “I like watching movies because as a teenager who felt trapped in his hometown, movies allowed me to escape and imagine a life where things were more exciting. Now that I have more freedom, I still enjoy movies because it reminds me of those times and allows me to continue being excited for life.”

Being more vulnerable, however, might require you to be more active in self-reflection and think more deeply about stuff. Instead of just:

What did I do this weekend?

Maybe also think about:

Who did I do these activities with? Do I enjoy spending time with them? Why? Why did I choose to do these things? How was I feeling? How does this one weekend fit into this stage of my life? Was there something I regretted? And so on.

Outside of connecting to people more authentically, digging deeper will allow you to have a better idea of what makes you who you are, what you value, and just overall achieve a stronger sense of identity, all things that will assist you indirectly when socializing.