“Nothing weighs on us so heavily as a secret.”~ Jean De La Fontaine
Whenever I am talking with someone, and the topic begins with “Don’t tell anyone I said this..”, or “You didn’t hear this from me”, it immediately sends up red flags.
There seems to be a lot of that floating around in this day and age. Everything seems to be a big secret. And I am not 100% sure why that is or why it has to be.
These kinds of phrases seemed to be echoed over and over again, especially where I live. I find myself thrusted into the streets of “Peyton Place”, rather than having a decent conversation with another human being.
Through my experiences, it is not so much that the subject matter is a secret but rather it is the beginning of a conversation turning into gossip. And for those people who are trying to initiate the gossip only use those kinds of words and phrases to cover their own butts, so it doesn’t seem like they are such a bad person for beginning to gossip in the firs place.
These words trigger my defenses so quickly that it has become more or less, an automatic response. I KNOW that whatever is about to follow is either not true, partially true, or simply unnecessary to be discussed.
Yet society does have its own secrets. I tend to believe that a lot of things that I am told “in secrecy”, is only a test to see if I have the capability to keep my mouth shut. So when I hear about someone not quitting their job, or someone just found she was pregnant, or something like that, then it becomes a test of whether or not I can keep this information to myself.
The joke is on them though. Not everyone on this planet knows how to separate secrets from gossip. Mainly because they LOVE to gossip themselves. So then whenever I am tol something in secrecy like this, and the words get out anyway… there’s no way that it can be pinned on me. Try as they might.
Trust me, with the fact that a majority of my neighbors are of the elderly class… all they have time for any more, is gossip and talk. I get to hear everyone’s dirty little secrets. The interesting fact is that I get to hear these kinds of stories over and over again because they believe I am the innocent party and I have not been given such information that they feel it necessary that I should have it. But then turn around with their personal disclaimer of how it should not be repeated when the truth is that by the time you have told me, its been repeated to me four or five times by then.
Besides all of that, whatever happened to common sense? Where did it go that people absolutely MUST tell you NOT to repeat what they are telling you?? Its not in my job description for me to inform other neighbors, friends, or family members if your niece is in the hospital with a broken leg because she was stupid enough to jump off the roof of her house. If you want to share that with someone, then by all means YOU DO IT!
You shouldn’t have to pre-warn me not to repeat anything you’ve just told me.
Some information is meant to be shared. Other information is not. But don’t put me in that position where everything that comes out of your mouth has to be vaulted and sealed. Mainly because I am just going to believe that whatever you just said, probably isn’t all that true to begin with.
It makes sense to me that if you are talking to me in public, with people walking around that whatever it is you are telling me, just common talk. But if you and I are talking on a one-on-one situation, chances are that its personal conversation and I KNOW BETTER not to be spreading it around. And you won’t have me to blame when it does come out and you feel betrayed. You’ll just have to look to whomever else you told that held that same conversation with to see who it was that blabbed their tongues.
And they wonder why I don’t get out as much anymore?!?
Dambreaker 