TMI vs. TLI

It seems to me that one of the primary social difficulties facing each one of us is the decision about how much personal information to share. More often than not, people share too much information. No stranger wants to hear about your tragic divorce when they ask, “how’s it going.” What they want to hear is “fine.” Truth be told, strangers don’t care how it is going for you; they just have to say something to fill that awkward silence before they ask you for something. Saying “fine” regardless of one’s true condition allows everyone to conduct their business as efficiently as possible so that they can devote their energies to more important tasks like daytime TV or heavy drinking.

However, occasionally you run into a situation in which someone has provided you with entirely too little information. For example, this week a good friend of mine received an e-mail from a mutual friend that went something like this.

Hi -----

I got your e-mail. I’ve been really busy lately with the police. Crashed the car.

Later,
-----
WTF! This is not an appropriate amount of information to convey. What does “busy with the police” mean? How did he crash the car in question? Are the two incidents related? We initially thought that we would receive more information when the mutual friend had more time to respond. After all, he was “busy with the police.” I don’t know from personal experience but I would have to assume being busy with the police is a little more difficult to remedy than being busy with decoupage or being busy because you are talking to your mother or something. You probably can’t tell the police that your cell phone is about to die so you have to make this conversation quick. We waited another three days and received … nothing! Apparently he thought that his e-mail comprehensively answered the question “what’s up?” I wholeheartedly disagreed and spent part of today finding his e-mail address so I could see if he needed any help. On the bright side, e-mailing my friend and then writing about e-mailing my friend has distracted me for about 45 minutes. I think I can now return to productivity for another few hours before calling it a day. Score.