Everything is embarrassing

Epistolaria 2.9 June 2026 / About the project

Truth has always been the obvious choice in every round of Truth or Dare I have ever played. Predisposed to honesty and quite a bit of shamelessness, I rarely struggle with answering (rather predictable) questions thrown my way in this late-night, drunken game. The truth – ahem – is that I feel I have nothing to hide, but it's mostly a deep fear of embarrassment that has always kept me from taking on a dare. I don't have the guts, I tell myself, making my peace with my cowardice and aversion to risk.

So, a few years ago, when an acquaintance I'd only known for a day – the kind you divulge things about yourself you don't usually disclose, knowing you will never see them again – said, you are so adventurous, the still waters of my self-perception were thoroughly disturbed. Adventurous was never a word I used to describe myself. Eager, maybe. Curious for sure. But adventurous? I spent most of my teenage years at home reading, studying, or watching movies late into the night. Some of my best friends were people I met online and rarely, if at all, saw in person. I didn't play a sport, go to parties. Aside from brief episodes of longing for teenage excitement, I was fairly content with being a textbook shy, studious schoolgirl.

Yet as C– and I spoke on that beautiful spring afternoon, as I recounted how I endured a four-hour interrogation at the airport, managed a small vintage clothing business with a friend, called out corruption in a college organization during a public forum, pursued Michael, now my husband, outside of the dating app because I refused to believe we didn't match – I saw for the first time that perhaps I possessed a kind of bravery. I'm averse to risks that involve losing what I have, which is why gambling in any form holds no appeal for me, but risks that involve the new? Those that don't exact a toll beyond a bit of ego bruising? There I seem to find my adventurousness.