Why you should be mysterious

It's healthy to keep things to yourself

I know how dumb it must seem for me to write about the importance of being mysterious. I literally dump all my thoughts into a free substack that I send out several times a week with my name and face attached to it. I can’t think of anything with less mystique than that. Yet here we are.

In a world where everything is shared. Where dating is done by displaying oneself on an app like an item for sale in a catalogue. Where someone may come up to you on the street with a microphone and ask you how much you pay for rent and then ask for a tour of your apartment that will then be viewed by millions on TikTok. Being mysterious is a rebellious act.

I think there are two good reasons for being a bit more mysterious. There is the appeal it creates and the benefit it has for your soul. I will discuss each.

The appeal of being mysterious

Mysterious people are more interesting. When you post all of your photos from your vacation and location tag every meal you have, what left do you leave people to ask you? Conversation—good conversation—is a process of discovery. You are trying to learn about the person you are talking to as they attempt to learn about you. These learnings obviously have tiers. There is the small talk where they learn your opinion on a current event “are you following the Lily Allen thing?” or what TV shows you are watching. Then there is the medium talk which may get into where you went on vacation or your hobbies. You know, things more unique to you. Eventually, if you’re lucky, up to big talk. Your philosophies and fears and hopes and dreams or whatever. But the fun of all these conversations is the process of discovery. The conversation leaves them nothing to ask and you nothing to reveal to them.

Gatekeeping is good for society. It gives everyone spaces to explore. Be a dark cave that people wonder about. It is more fun for them and for you.

When you overshare it is like walking into a room and saying “I went to Japan. I liked the sushi. It was fun.” What is left for anyone to say? It gives them the information they were after, but removes the fun of pursuing it.

It’s counterintuitive to think that the more someone knows about you upon meeting you the less they will have to talk about with you, but it’s often true. The archaeological site that is your life was excavated before they got there leaving them with no room to dig for themselves. And of course, I am not saying what you should or should not share on social media, that would be presumptuous. But my point is to think about what is gained by showing it all and what is lost.

And by the way, this oversharing is not just something that can happen on social media. There are all sorts of ways we tell the world about ourselves. Like at work. Are you an open book on day one? When you have an appointment do you tell everyone what it is for or do you just put “unavailable” on your calendar?

Whomever puts the least information about themselves out into the world becomes the most interesting. The most valuable commodity. This is because scarcity is precious in an era of overabundance and unlimited everything.

DeBeers has always known this. But this now has permeated all retail ever since the early 00s when Nike realized how much more valuable their Nike SB dunks were perceived to be compared to their regular dunks because they would “drop” them in these limited runs and only at select skate shops. This made way for the current “cool D2C model” and why it seems like all brands now operate with limited drops that are designed to sell out. No one wants to be like J. Crew was in the 2010s when they had plenty of stock and things would always go on sale and be deemed valueless. (they ended up turning this around by bringing on Brendon Babenzien as their new creative director, he was co-founder of Supreme which is one of the main proponents of “limited drops” and scarcity for value). But I digress! You should make yourself scarce. It will make you more desirable, like a diamond or some Nike SB dunks.

If you’re still with me, I’m going to now discuss the other reason why I think it’s important to be mysterious.

Being mysterious is healthy for your soul

Being mysterious is saving a little something for just yourself. If you put everything out there for everyone, then whats left for you? Yes, this information about yourself is not a limited resource that will dissipate if shared since its obviously not tangible but still. When something is shared it is not wholly yours anymore. There are people with upside-down pineapples in their entryway who may disagree but I think it feels nice to have something thats just for you and only you to enjoy. These things are free from judgement or interpretation.

If this part is hard to grasp, just look at people who live in the public eye. Where does their unhappiness come from? Lack of having aspects of their life that belong to only them. You can have something that Michael Jackson dreamed of having.

I am not saying you should be a hermit but I think having the barriers of what’s for everyone, what’s for friends, what’s for family and what’s for only yourself is important even if I can’t totally articulate why. When you are good at maintaining those barriers it could be construed as mysterious or reserved or whatever, but trust me its cool and its healthy and its becoming increasingly rare as we are encouraged to share more and more freely.

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This is an excerpt/rewrite of something I wrote over a year ago. You can see the original here: