Self-Disclosure In Lovesick

Taking a shot in the dark, I watched the pilot of a British Netflix original, Lovesick, a series about a twenty-something who found out he has chlamydia, and must contact all his sexual partners to tell them. Throughout the series, we learn about his unfortunate quest to find love by witnessing his cringe-worthy encounters with all his past lovers. The pilot is titled Abigail, paying tribute to a bartender he hooked up with after a friend’s wedding. The very fact that he has to reveal to all these women that he has a sexually transmitted infection is a perfect example of self-disclosure, which can be defined as revealing yourself to others by sharing information about yourself (O Hair, Wiemann, Mullin, and Teven 57). The doctor also uses sarcasm with Dylan, and

After Dylan and the bartender drink, talk and develop feelings of immediacy, they end up hooking up. Immediacy is “a feeling of closeness, involvement, and warmth between people” (O Hair Wiemann, Mullin, and Teven 99). Finally, we go back to watching Dylan in the present as he is attending the wedding photographer’s engagement party. He sees the happy couple, and is jealous of the groom as he naturally utilizes the self-comparison theory. The self-comparison theory suggests that “we are driven to gain an accurate sense of self by examining our qualities and abilities in comparison with others” (O’ Hair Wiemann, Mullin, and Teven 47). We get a glimpse of how Dylan may be in love with the photographer, because at the end his best friend suggests that, “he can still say something”. He uses vocalizations as if he’s going to go up to her, but he doesn’t. Vocalizations can be defined as “paralinguistic utterances that give information about our emotional or physical state” (O’ Hair Wiemann, Mullin, and Teven 107). His vocalizations include a sigh, and a short utterance as if he was going to