When you talk to somebody about personal matters, there is a chance you will fall into one of two difficulties.
One, that the person will not listen to you at all.
Two, that the person will genuinely listen to you.
I do not mean the second as a joke. Not at all.
You understand, when a person opens up to you, they are actually depositing parts of their psyche with you.
And they become, at a stroke, both closer and more vulnerable.
Let us put it bluntly. The people close to me are far easier for me to insult. By virtue of our acquaintance I can formulate the most toxic remark available, one that will go in exactly at the coarse seams of their self-image.
I do not do it, true. But I could. So could you.
And nevertheless I remain entirely convinced that we need to talk. To talk about it, to talk about what is troubling, to talk about what is unsettling — in short, to talk about what is unknown.
Why? I have always argued that the longing for absolute security is a disaster. There is no such thing and there never will be, certainly not in interpersonal relations.
For the sake of your happiness and your development, do not look for absolute security. Better to take calculated risks.
Opening your heart to a person can be the most profitable move available, psychologically.
True, sometimes they may use it to take offence, at least in the short term.
But broadly, this is usually the point at which a relationship moves up a level.
When you tell them something you are ashamed to tell.
And I do not necessarily mean the ready-made accounts of your hardships in the army or at nursery.
I mean information with one prominent characteristic: you are afraid to reveal it.
Because notice what the alternative actually is. A relationship in which nothing was ever risked is not a safe relationship. It is a relationship in which two people have agreed, without discussing it, to remain strangers on comfortable terms — and then to be quietly puzzled about why it feels thin.