Daily Prompt – Locked and Sealed

Can you keep a secret? Have you ever — intentionally or not — spilled the beans (when you should’ve stayed quiet)?

I have a lot of secrets. About a lot of people. And let’s just say they should be mindful of that fact should they choose to talk shit about me behind my back… thinking that I won’t find out. Otherwise it would be a shame if those secrets happen to ‘accidentally’ be revealed to certain individuals… In other words, don’t fuck with me.

I’m a Scorpio, so keeping secrets, whether they’re mine or other peoples, are in my nature. I’ve done it for as long as I can remember, and all through high school, I was known as the vault amongst my friends, because I was the most trustworthy. If somebody chose to come to me with information, then it stayed between us. It’s not my place or responsibility to go blabbing anything to anybody else.

Although, more often than not, when somebody would tell me something ‘in confidence’ they’d also go tell somebody else ‘in confidence’ and before the day was out, we all knew about it. Or we’d just wait until the next party and they got drunk and all would be revealed. I think this is a great advocate for not drinking – because stupid bitches be shooting their mouths off when they drink!!

It can also be quite hard when you’re put in that position of being a confidant – because other people find out that a person has come and spoken to me privately, and so instantly they begin speculating what was discussed, and I inevitably get the third degree about it. But the difference is they would threaten me with things like not being my friend anymore, or not inviting me to parties, or social events, or excluding me on purpose from group discussions etc. and I’d just stand my ground and say that’s fine. I’m not shallow enough to make threats like that. Or they (try to) use reverse psychology on me with gems like ‘well you’re obviously not our friend then if you’re not going to tell us!’ Or my personal favourite ‘if you loved me / us, then you’d tell me / us!’ But they certainly didn’t realise that never worked on me… And never will.

The one time I have ever spilled the beans about something was amongst a couple of people. Person A had told me something in confidence, and then a couple of days later, they spoke to me again on the phone, saying they had also had a discussion with Person B about the same thing. Soon afterwards, persons A and B and myself got together for lunch, and person B brought up a subject and being of the understanding they knew about it, I said something about what Person A had told me.

Turned out that she had told Person B something different… And I had just put my foot in it. I was mortified beyond belief. And ended up causing a huge rift between two very close people. It certainly taught me to be much more cautious about what I say, and double check that I’m on the same page as the people confiding in me in terms of what they’re telling other people.

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