She’s our unofficial publicist

By Kevin Kane

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I may write a column sharing my opinions and certain aspects of my life, but I’m actually a fairly private person. In my articles, I can dictate exactly what to publicize and how to do it. I do the same thing with any conversations, e-mails or posts to social networking sites. I’m in control of the information that’s out there, and that’s the way I like it. However, recently I’ve discovered that, while I’m remaining mindful of what I share with the rest of the world, someone else is still filling everyone in on some details I’d rather not disclose. For the past several weeks, my fiancée Jess has been working as our unofficial publicist. [ad#single-post] She’s outgoing enough for the both of us and willing to open up about anything, to anyone. Personally, I like to decide which moderately embarrassing, personal details I’ll reveal and with whom I’ll share them, but since Jess is the only one of us updating a Facebook page, she ultimately holds the key to our vault and likes to keep it open. I don’t share most of the mundane details in our lives mainly because I assume most people don’t care, but between her status updates and online photo albums, she covers almost everything. Of course, this all occurs unbeknownst to me — at least initially. That’s why when friends of mine who barely know her have asked me about info I didn’t share, I’ve always been confused. When I’ve responded with hesitance or asked “How do you know that?” their answers have always been the same: “I saw it on Facebook.” At that moment, I always visualize myself reacting like Jerry Seinfeld. I imagine clinching my fist and gritting my teeth with the only difference being that instead of “Newman!” I say “Jess!” Truthfully, many of her comments portray me positively, but I’m not always comfortable with such a free exchange of personal details. If it were entirely up to me, there’d be few posts about me aside from a link to my latest column or that my streak of Dennis Franz references is up to six, with this freebie. She’s much more open though, sometimes leaking info I had hoped would be kept concealed by the boyfriend-girlfriend privilege. Last week, Southside Times graphic artist Zach Ross razzed me for watching the Lifetime movie Pregnancy Pact. As that wasn’t one of my proudest moments, I hadn’t planned on making it public. No more than an hour later on the same day, my boss Steve asked, “Did you know you and Jess are planning on having five kids?” and added, “That’s what it says on Facebook.” At that point, I became fully aware of her role as our unofficial publicist, but I also understand there’s little I can do about it. This is a product of our extravert-introvert relationship, and while sometimes I prefer she not divulge my secrets, I’ll eventually learn to loosen up and get over it. Until that time where it no longer bothers me, I will expect that anything I say or do is fair game for Facebook. That way, when she goes to work as our publicist, my personal spokesman (me) can be ready with a statement. If I’d been following that strategy last week, I could have responded to the Pregnancy Pact inquiries with “Mr. Kane regrets this decision and his momentary lapse in judgment.” I’ll get another chance to use that one if she ever posts about us watching the Kardashians.

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