Within the last two days I have become party to two rather exciting but personal secrets. Both people have requested that I keep their news on the "DL" which I am more than happy to do. Unfortunately, I had unwittingly shared one secret before I knew it was meant to be a secret. Now, I didn't go spreading it around like the town gossip and I doubt it actually made any lasting impression on those I shared it with but it brought the question to mind: how do you keep a secret? And how do you decide which ones to keep?
My mother would always reprimand us for a lack of tact and/or discretion when it came to certain topics. Some of the time I didn't understand what the big deal was about sharing some information with other people. I do have my lines when it comes to sharing secrets, I guess my lines may just be situation-coded.
So, debates about my trustworthiness aside, how do you keep a secret? How good are you at keeping secrets? Do you have different levels of secret keeping or would you keep any secret anyone ever told you, no matter what? What about your MC? Are they on the straight and narrow or do they bend, or break some of those rules of trust? Do they have lines? What are they? How willing would they be to break bonds of trust if they thought it might be in the best interest of the other party?
I had a friend who was moving and didn't want people telling anyone. It didn't register with them why it would be a secret and when I spread, she got really upset. I was careful not to say anything because she emphasized how it was a secret, but that wouldn't be an obvious secret.
ReplyDeleteWhen a person vents about another person, I keep that a secret, but it's pretty obvious they don't want it spreading around.
When my son was violated at Scout Camp, they wanted us to keep some stuff on the DL, but I don't do that when it comes to the safety of others. Grab my kid's crotch and other parents are going to know about it to protect their kids.
Isn't it interesting some of the things we and other people consider secrets? That's fascinating to me, and brings up so many questions too!
DeleteI can't blame you at all for not keeping that on the DL. I think it would be so hard to not take even more drastic measures, let alone telling everyone about that. I'm so sorry to hear that!