I never thought I had a problem with being blunt and being truthful. As far as I was concerned, I was an open book, but it seems as though the best defense mechanisms are often invisible to those using them.

During dinner with some of the Offenders, I was asked about the direction I was taking with this feature.

The thing I heard most frequently was my tendency to go into non-sequiturs. Deep down inside, an immature part of me felt a knee with a strong urge to jerk – but I reigned him in, put him in the corner. Told him to get his knee checked.

Then I thought about what I had been writing about with this column.

Most of the blogs started from a very cursory connection to film – not even my specific position of being a film school graduate and all the trappings that entails. I wasn’t take advantage of that very particular point-of-view that I have.

Then I thought about why I had been doing that.

The superficial reason was that I felt it would be much more entertaining to read poorly-written anecdotes about exaggerated problems. But sitting there in that restaurant being asked about it point blank made the bottom of my stomach drop out and I knew then it was more than that, that there was a truth some part of me was privy too but that another part was so desperately running away from.

That truth, quite simply, was the truth.

It’s easy to say that real life is not as exciting as fiction, that real life is boring. And that’s because most times, it really is. However, the emotions real life evokes in each of us – witnessing things and being in the thick of them – that’s almost never dull. Those are powerful, complex.

So why not write about that?

Fear. Because this is the Internet and what you write here can be seen by anyone and putting out something that honest can leave someone feeling quite naked. I guess I wasn’t as much of an exception to that rule as I thought that was.

I wanted to put on a pokerface because, hell – there isn’t exactly an overabundance of people just baring their souls to total strangers. If I bare mine, maybe that will encourage someone else to do the same, to bring the feelings they’re hiding and denying out to the surface so that even they may discover it themselves. To make someone feel a little less alone.

Or maybe not. But I’ll at least try – I am the Floundering Film Flunkee.