A while ago I told a friend a bit of personal information (a secret). I swore her to secrecy and trusted that she would stay true to her word. A few days later she admitted that she shared my secret with her mother. I was a little annoyed, but explained that she better make sure her mother understood the importance of the secrecy since there were other people in their family I was withholding the secret from.
The same thing happened again with another friend. I told him something personal and let him know how important it was for the information to remain private. He went on about how honored he was to be in "the inner circle" and that I trusted him enough to divulge such personal information. A week later, he confessed that he had shared the secret with his brother (someone I barely know). Again, I was thinking, "WTF?! Can't people keep their mouths shut?" I recently saw this friends brother, and it felt really uncomfortable to me knowing that this guy knows something so personal.
These experiences have had me thinking about secrets and human nature. Can people truly keep secrets? What makes people share the private information that others have shared with them? Is it a need to gossip, to hear someone else's opinion, or just the fact that knowing you're "not supposed" to tell makes you want to tell even more? Or something else?
I've wracked my brain trying to figure this out. In each of those situations, there was no need or relevance for either of those people to tell the people they did (it's not like my friends mother or my other friends brother have any interest or stake in knowing things about me). I still have yet to ask each of my friends (if they can even remember now) why they chose to divulge my secret. The more I've thought about it, the more curious I am about this topic of human nature and the art of keeping secrets.
Last weekend I was in a situation where I was having a conversation with another friend and for a moment I had the urge to tell her a secret since it was relevant to the conversation. However, I was able to stop myself when I realized that it was quite possible she would do the same thing the other two people did (tell someone else). Also, I was remembering my New Year's resolution I made to be better at keeping things private and not allowing myself to be such an open book.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
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1 comment:
I agree that it's an interesting, but hard to understand topic. I sometimes catch myself sharing secrets and I know it's wrong but I do it anyway. That sounds horrible, but it's the honest truth. For me, I know that sometimes (and I've tried to be a lot better about this in recent years) I will share information because for some insane reason I think it will make the person more interested in what I'm saying (read: me) or create (or strengthen) our friendship. That all sounds completely immature, I'm totally aware. I've also shared secrets with someone (like my Mom) when I've been completely blown away by a friend's news and I really need to discuss it with someone uninvolved, just to hash it out and get it and resolve any feelings I might have about it. In your case, it doesn't really seem right that your friend told her mom, when she (I'm assuming) knew that this was something you were intentionally keeping from her family...It would be interesting to know why she did that.
Anyway, that's my long winded two cents.
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