#142: The upside of embarrassing yourself

+ happy birthday to Maybe Baby

Good morning!

Last Friday marked Maybe Baby’s third birthday. Thank god I’m still here and you’re still here. Don’t know what I’d be doing without this project! Whether you’re a free or paying subscriber, I appreciate your support every day. The comments, the meetups, the forwarding of my newsletter to your friends…makes a girl want to weep. Thanks so much for not unsubscribing. The ultimate modern-day show of faith!

The upside of embarrassing yourself

I recently got an email about my writing that was mildly hostile. When I first read it I talked to Avi about it, and then I texted my editor, and, finally, I mentioned it when I saw my friend Michelle later and she asked me about work. What happened after each conversation is kind of predictable, although I hadn’t consciously considered that going in: Each of them said incredibly generous things about my writing. They weren’t patronizing me, I don’t think, just using the opportunity to offer a contrasting opinion to my critic’s. So while I started the day with a minor crisis of confidence, I ended it with an abundance of support. It’s easy to take this kind of shift for granted, but there’s something very sweet about it. We’re social creatures, and connection serves as an unadulterated antidote to so many different ills.

That same day, long after Michelle and I had moved on from the topic of my writing, she told me something her mother-in-law says a lot about knitting: “Mistakes get you compliments.” Perfectly knitted things look manufactured, while little mistakes lend pieces a homemade charm, more likely to garner questions of origin and words of admiration. Michelle said the phrase went over her head the first few times she heard it, but recently it had struck her in a new way, and she started to consider other applications. I was struck by it too, and noticed a similar response when I shared the expression with other people: Their heads would cock in intrigue, as if they’d heard a strange sound. Mistakes get you compliments. It’s comforting before you even consider whether it’s true.

I’m not sure the aspect of my writing that was criticized would count as a mistake, but the experience shared some qualities with making one. It made me second-guess myself, feel embarrassed. Telling people made me feel exposed. It involved admitting that at least one person finds me irritating and clueless. (Maybe we’re all irritating and clueless to someone, but that’s the sort of thing we tend to hide.) The compliments followed as if by divine order. My inability to reach my intended audience in the intended way, circled and spotlit by one unhappy reader, had a way of highlighting, by contrast, the good parts all around it, like a dropped stitch in a handmade sweater.

The expression isn’t ironclad. Some mistakes get you prison time, divorced, or, on the internet, where human decency goes to die, unremitting vitriol. But there’s a truth about sharing our mistakes that’s worth acknowledging, particularly when it comes to the little shortcomings and missteps that populate our inner worlds. First I think we could broaden the “mistake” umbrella to include shame, vulnerability, imperfection, grit. When willingly shared, each has a way of summoning tenderness and appreciation from others. This nurturing response is instinctual, I think, dulled only by the dehumanizing conditions of modern life, and it prevails in spite of those. Almost every act of kindness I’ve received, offered, or witnessed, for instance, has been in response to someone visibly flailing. (If you’ve ever cried in public, you’ll know what I’m talking about.) And yet most of us organize our lives around avoiding such open displays of weakness. It’s a little bit tragic, if you think about it. In order to be loveable, we hide our failures, thus blocking one of love’s most reliable throughways. 

Avi once taught me about a musical production tool known as the chorus effect. The chorus effect is a way of making songs sound less perfect, by layering instruments or voices and tweaking their timing and pitch so they’re off just enough to give music a more present, lively feeling. Whether we consciously notice it or not, we’re drawn to this dissonance, full of little “mistakes.” When I was little I was obsessed with this song sung by a woman who sounded like she’d lost her voice. She sounded squeaky and pained. I didn’t understand at the time that she wasn’t singing it live whenever my parents put it on in the car, and so each time it ended I would mourn the possibility that between now and the next time I heard it, she might get her voice back. Over the years I’ve had similar obsessions with songs that sound imperfect—a weird note, an awkward lyric, a brief arhythmic beat. The little hiccups catch my attention, endearing me to the songs in a way a more seamless version never could. 

It’s easy to forget we tend to feel the same way about people. Or that people may feel the same way about us. My friend recently told me that her therapist suggested she complain more to her friends. She’d always avoided complaining for fear of burdening the people around her, but after taking the advice, she was surprised by the response. Her friends wanted to hear her complain, to help her figure things out. Complaining a little let them into her world. Made them feel trusted and interdependent. By now, we’re used to hearing self-improvement lectures about the value of vulnerability and failure through the lens of how they help us succeed. But rarely do we think of them as the very means through which we connect, the charming little snags that strengthen our social fabric, the mistakes that get us compliments.

My favorite thing I read last week was “My Ugly Bathroom,” by Sarah Miller for The Paris Review, an endorsement for things that don’t “twinkle with magic and possibility.” Last Friday’s 15 things also included a new kitchen necessity, a twisted little novel, a frog print, and more. (To the person who asked me for more article recommendations, I usually recommend around five every Friday in this list!) The rec of the week concerned quintessential spring activities, to get us in the mood.

Thanks again for being here! I hope you have a nice Sunday.
Haley