It’s pretty much agreed that one of the hardest topics to write on is yourself.
There’s so much I can say about myself, I mean, nobody knows you better than yourself, but the hard part is, what do people actually care about? I wear a watch. I have green eyes. I enjoy people-watching. I am a grammar nut. I couldn’t write a poem if my life depended on it. I like to look through the window at Gage and try to wave at people in other towers to see if they see me. All of these are true, some a bit creepy, but none of which anyone who is reading a paragraph about me cares about.
Even with all of these trivial facts eliminated, there’s still the question of what you want the reader to know. I could add that I’m on the blog squad, but do I want them to read all of my blogs? What if they come across something I don’t want them to? Such is the consequence of writing a blog, but I’m not going to volunteer possibly risky information to someone I’m trying to impress.
And then there’s the question about if you should add some of the negative things/quirks about yourself to show authenticity and that you aren’t leaving anything out. I always feel like I should tell the whole truth, yet only including my positive qualities would make that incomplete.
But if I’m going the safe route, I only have boring facts: faculty, “interests,” etc. Is there really a way to make that interesting? My typical approach doesn’t work here – a formal “about me” can’t be comedic or satirical. Also, I say interests in quotation marks because that’s another fuzzy area. I have a lot of interests! But many of which nobody cares about, which leads back to picking through all of them, coming up with the relevant ones, and trying to put them all in a nice, neat, and interesting paragraph.
Tell me about yourself. I dare you to try.