Excuse me miss, I think you left your tampon in my sink

I’m talking about strangers who can casually talk about their bowel movements, for instance, as if it was as banal as talking about the weather.

I’ve had more than my fair share of these people, which is why I’m beginning to believe that I may have the words “I know we just met, but please tell me the grossest details of your life because I’m just dying to know them” written on my forehead.

Some people just seem to be comfortable telling me such things.

An ex-colleague once randomly told me during lunch that she had just been tested free of STDs, while another acquaintance I had known for less than 24 hours casually confessed that he had herpes. Unless both of them had plans of sleeping with me, I haven’t the faintest clue as to what made them share that information, other than perhaps they thought I sidelined as a health worker.

Just recently, I met this rather attractive young lady at a cocktail party who, at first glance, looked in every way prim and proper, with the seeming air of someone who grew up sipping tea all afternoon in her family’s manor.

But what really struck me was the fact that she spoke with the eloquence of a prostitute on crack.

“Can you believe this crap?” she loudly blurted out while munching on a canapé.

“Huh? What crap?” I replied. No one else was around the buffet table, so I surmised she was talking to me.

“This pathetic buffet spread! For someone with so much money you’d think he’d at least serve some fucking foie gras,” she said as she continued to stuff her face with more finger food.

I simply smiled, wondering who the hell invited her.

Then with her mouth full, she abruptly turned to me and said, “Oh I’m sorry, you’re probably friends with the host. I’m Tammy, by the way. My husband dragged me to this stupid party. He says it’s good for me to be out of the house once in a while, you know, to meet people and brush up on my social skills.”

I was really tempted to say, “Oh you poor thing. You need more than just brushing up,” but decided to get myself a glass of wine instead.

Tammy followed me all way to the bar, describing how bored she’s been these past several weeks cooped up at home with her newborn baby.

Despite my obvious disinterest in her story, she pressed on like one of those loud department store ladies with head microphones, fervently demonstrating the innovative features of a fruit peeler regardless of whether anyone was listening or not.

“No one ever told me that having a baby was so much hard work! I feel like a fucking feeding station. My tits feel all sore and like they no longer belong to me,” she whined as I waited for my drink, which at that point I had desperately asked the bartender to change to a double shot of vodka.

“And you don’t even know the worst part of it,” she continued. “Taking a dump is like giving birth all over again. Every time I sit on the damn toilet, I feel like the stitches in my freaking vagina are going to rip.”

I took a swig of my vodka, turned to her and said, “Do I look like a doctor to you? I’m sorry to hear about your vaginal woes, but maybe you should consider getting your mouth stitched, too,” then walked away.

Tammy is probably one of those people who will take much delight in telling you that the vegetable you’re about to put in your mouth was fertilized with some fetid cow dung—true, perhaps, but totally inappropriate.

I was never one to claim to be conservative or easily shocked, but despite my own heightened tolerance for vulgarity, I still do recognize the boundaries of social decency, at least in the presence of acquaintances. Because quite frankly, unless you want me to do something about it, I don’t really need to know that you’re having your menstrual period today, and neither do I care to know just how heavy it flows, thank you very much.

And this rule applies to both real and virtual worlds, mind you.

Just the other day I read about someone’s hemorrhoids on Twitter. I mean, seriously? What’s next? People posting results of their urinalysis on Facebook?

In today’s society, when what used to be kept private and confidential is now considered (expected even) to be public knowledge, people have suddenly found a certain level of comfort in sharing way too much information.

But just how much is too much?

A viable answer to this question can be found in what I call the Greater Good Gauge or GGG.

GGG simply allows you to measure the social value of your information before recklessly roping in others into the gruesome details of your life. One way to test the public worth of your information is to ask yourself the following: Did the person specifically ask you about it? Are you close enough to go into such detail? Does it help propel the conversation? Is it useful? Is it, at the very least, interesting, groundbreaking, or funny?

If you honestly think that describing the shape, size, color, and consistency of your shit to certain strangers during dinner will somehow help them unleash their otherwise untapped creative potential in life, then go ahead, spill!

But until the day your shit carries the secret to solving world hunger (hopefully not by feeding it to the hungry), I highly suggest you flush it out of any conversation for the time being, because sharing way too much information is like leaving a used tampon in someone else’s sink. It’s not their mess, so why the hell should they have to deal with it?