Tell me your secrets
On gossip, secrets, trust and betrayal
During the midst of Covid I get really into Instagram. I think we all got more into various screen time behaviors, but in particular, I got really into a thing I started in my stories on Thursday nights I called, highly cReAtIvEly, “Secrets.” Instagram has an option which allows people to answer questions and let me anonymously share them, and I, bored on the first night of extreme lockdown number two late July of 2021, asked people to tell me their secrets.
I know it’s not really an original idea; heaps of examples of public secret sharing exist in modern culture: PostSecret, The Secrets Hotline etc.. (There’s even a similar app out for Instagram Stories now called NGL, Not Gonna Lie.) Regardless, I was personally floored and amused at the different secrets people knowingly allowed me to share with the others who watched my stories. I got confessions of cheating. I got crazy stories of Pablo Escobar. Some were hilarious and others embarrassing. Here are a few ranging examples.
I desperately loved being host to people’s secrets. Private conversations spiraled from them, many of them quite deep; some, incredibly inappropriate, but hey I put myself out there. People in their late 20s confessed their virginity. A person told me they were in the closet, afraid to come out. I suddenly understood why people went into priesthood. I loved that people trusted me and also wanted me to share their deepest and darkest. This was my Covid calling. (I’ve tried to keep them going in 2022, but they’ve petered out. I don’t have a big enough following from shameless sharers.)
But I’ve been thinking about secrets a lot since. I have never revealed any of my secret sources from Instagram, despite my reputation at one job as being the “mouth of the south” and also my profession as a part-time journalist. But, I must clarify, my mouth has certainly gotten me in a lot of trouble throughout my life. I don’t have a great history of keeping secrets, although to be fair I’m not always aware that someone is talking to me in such confidence. One of my biggest fights from work happened when I flippantly told one colleague another colleague’s secret. I regretted it and apologized for it, but it took a while to fix things. I have casually mentioned a few things I later learned were not my secrets to tell. When socializing, I’m always on the hunt for entertaining anecdotes, which leads me to not always think critically about repercussions. My partner once told me he chooses not to tell me things because he says I can’t gauge what is private and what isn’t. (Sorry Josh, was that private too?)
Secrets are fascinating. When we share, they reveal our vulnerabilities and possibly our dark sides. When we keep them (ours or others) we retain mystery, we keep people at a distance, we have boundaries, we have trust. I love when people divulge to me, and I do my best to keep secrets when I definitely know that I’m being told one. I do sometimes characterize the secrets by how well I know the person. A stranger on the bus tells me a secret, I might just tell my partner. A girlfriend tells me a secret, I try to keep it. Some are easier to keep than others.
I love to analyze the rationale behind keeping and telling secrets. I wonder if people tell me things they wouldn’t tell others because it takes a lot to offend me. I’ll take people’s authentic thoughts, problematic as they may be, over a watered down version that isn’t actually them. There’s probably always a limit though. Judgement is a crucial thing to remember when it comes to choosing whether or not to share information. You never know how people will receive information, and I mean this for myself as well. I love when people divulge to me, but occasionally, open minded as I think I am, someone has told me something I disapprove of (usually in confidence) and I think less of them. But I have to remember that people very well might be doing the same for me.
But gosh juicy gossip is enticing. I think about that scene in Steal Magnolias where Clairee says “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit next to me.”
I love when someone confesses to me about not liking something about someone else. I don’t enjoy reveling in someone else’s gossip misfortune, but when someone tells me why they don’t like something, it helps me see glimpses of who they are. (The old saying “what Jane says about Anne says more about Jane than Anne” comes to mind.) By telling me something distasteful, (even if it might not even be true) you are choosing to show me your ugly side and you hope that I still like you. And I do, haha I love everybody.
(To counter that scene let’s watch Philip Seymour Hoffman shame gossip in the beautiful movie Doubt.)
Judgement is a fascinating thing when it comes to sharing/withholding information, especially that which can’t be proven. Conflicting phrases come to mind, both which have merit: “innocent until proven guilty” and conversely “believe all women."
How deep can I get into secrets, gossip, truth and speculation with a one-hour blog post?
When I was in college I lived in the dorms and had a crew of friends who all lived on the same floor. We were a bit of a crew and got into nonstop mischief, but bar a few serious couples, we were all just friends. A guy and I started a brief steamy fling, and we decided not to tell the other people in our friends’ group for various reasons. We had to sneak around a bit, and while I liked him, I felt like the high I was ultimately chasing was the fact that no one knew. Once people figured it out (they usually do) things were less exhilarating. Keeping secrets can be tantalizing, to our own detriment unfortunately. I have never read David Foster Wallace, but I heard he once said “the truth will set you free but not until it is finished with you.”
I had a discussion with a tipsy friend where she revealed that she judged me for a few things I’d told her about my life. I didn’t like that she judged me. I told her, “when you judge me, you don’t stop me from being this person; I just stop telling you things.”
How far would you go to keep someone’s secret? Could you keep a secret about someone who broke a law? Is it your duty to reveal a friend’s affair? Is it ever noble to keep quiet and look away. I don’t know, just thinking out loud I suppose.