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When it comes to food I am super unadventurous. No braised brain of cephalopod or fried foam of limpet fart for me, thank you.
Hell, I don’t even do stinky cheeses.
So when I watched Katy Perry choose between eating a thousand-year egg or spilling the beans about who was a better lover – John Mayer, Diplo and Orlando Bloom – on James Corden’s 'Spill Your Guts' this week, I got why she chose to ruin the rest of her year with the confession.
And if it’s only the rest of the year she’s doing great.
Apart from the fact that the media will dine out on this for months (‘Mayer may be the best, but Katy still pines for Groban!’), it’s that she’ll have all that damage control to do.
Imagine the emergency texts to the three: ‘Heya JSYK the 1k yr eg made m do it & u da bes 4 rl!!’
What’s Diplo going to say when he’s asked what Katy is like in the sack – Katy who placed him last on her sex-fest list.
You think he’s going to be nice? He won’t have a thousand-year egg in his face, but he’s pretty close already so what’s he got to lose, right?
I’m not dissing her for caving to the threat of unfamiliar foodstuffs. We’ve all been there.
I just know how hectic public kiss ‘n’ tells can get.
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It’s one thing to giggle with your girl friends about so-and-sos ‘so and so’ in private, but the minute you’re splashing it publicly you elevate this shit to KO level.
As someone who has done a LOT of kiss ‘n’ tell as a sex writer, let me tell you, it’s hardly ever worth it even with fake names. People always recognise themselves.
You may think you’ll never see them again, but there will come a time when you’ll have to weigh up the value of your anecdotal gold against the miserable awkwardness of being called on it.
Like the one night stand I had a few years ago.
I went to town on that story, writing about it everywhere and parading it around as my fave anecdote of Bad One-Night Stands – hilarious cringe comedy about a nameless dude on the bonk-n-buzz timeline that that was my 30s LOL…
Until the day he was introduced as the best friend of a new acquaintance I was trying to impress.
And he recognised me before I recognised him. And he knew what I’d written. And my new acquaintance connected the dots. And I felt like the biggest douche in the world.
Oh, it was very awkward.
I didn’t even have a thousand-year egg to blame. It’s all okay now of course, but it’s put a damper on my public overshares these days.
So. I feel you Katy.
But I think this is a lesson to all of us even without the million-dollar image: Keep your kiss ‘n’ tell between friends. Unless you’re forced to eat fried foam of limpet fart. Then spill.
Follow Dorothy Black on her blog and on Twitter.
