I posted this yesterday but then second guessed myself and deleted it.
Basically a few days ago, my coworkers asked me to go for lunch and confronted me because I don’t share enough about my personal life. They complained that they aways talk about theirs and I don’t talk about mine. I felt put on the spot but as I was trying to share about something bad that happened to one of my parents, they cut me off and hijacked the conversation. I barely even got a full sentence in before I was interrupted.
I am a reserved person. I do have anxiety which holds me back and I would like to work on it for my own mental health, but I also personally prefer to keep my personal life separate from work. I don’t owe them any details about my life, I’d never expect someone at work to tell me about theirs.
Why is it expected in office culture to overshare about our personal lives? To be honest a lot of people tell me things I don’t really care to know, but I’m the weird one, even though they interrupted me anyway so clearly they didn’t care.
I’m planning to distance myself from these people a bit. I don’t work on the same team as them so it won’t really impact my work directly. Has anyone been in a similar position?
Edit: also just want to mention that I actually DO talk about my life at work too, just not all aspects of it. I’m selective, I don’t give them details on my relationship because it’s none of their business, I share what I’m comfortable sharing.