Too see-through?

Is it possible to be too transparent? In this day of tweets and custom status messages on everything from AIM to Facebook, it seems ironic there's still such a thing as TMI. You set your status to something you hope will invite curiosity clicks and chats, but – people being people, no matter what new technology they're clothed in – there are still boundaries. It's the emperor's new clothes, 2.0 style.

I'm writing this as a note to self. I forget, repeatedly, that people much prefer chirpy chatter to the real thing. I make the mistake of confusing someone's genuine-sounding "How are you?" with "How are you, really?" It would make both of our lives easier if I'd remember to clothe my conversations in something my grandmother would approve of.

But that leaves me wondering how we strip off the layers to our authentic selves. Are our twitterings the real stuff of life or the appearance of the real stuff of life? How do we truly connect unless we actually undress? Perhaps that's my lesson: Not only do I take it all off too quickly, I do in front of a crowd what's better left for a private audience.