alt Hacker NewsThere's a huge difference between learning that your colleague also happens to play chess, and sharing the vulnerability of how you handled personal grief in your life.
Your workplace is a community, not a friendship circle, and not a family. Community life has always had a certain level of formality to help paper over the differences between people in the community while still fostering a positive, inclusive environment.
I think that's something people have increasingly forgotten. My grandparents were active in their church for decades. They didn't talk about my grandmother's serious mental health struggles with the other parishioners.
People in the past had stronger community institutions, and I think a part of that was that nobody expected to bring their whole self to bowling club or the neighborhood potluck.