 Secrets
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Apr. 25th, 2008 @ 11:47 am 
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I sort of was going to tell a story today.
That was the plan, but the plan is bunk. The plan is no good because telling the story would require partially airing a secret and I’m fairly good at keeping secrets.
Years of drug induced paranoia* made something of a secretive child. I don’t do a lot of telling people things that I don’t think they need to know. I’ll tell them random, useless and often pointless things, as any reader of this LJ can attest, but anything that I judge as a confidence or secret I tend to keep them to myself. I like hearing about other people though, because I am endlessly fascinated with the myriad of differences that exist amongst the people I know. I’m also a pretty good listener, and that in turn makes people more talkative. This means that I get to hear all about people’s lives and their adventures. If they know me well, they should know for the most part I’m not going to go repeating too much either. That’s either paranoia, or a good heaping helping of empathy for you. I either worry too much about everyone else’s secrets and they harm they might do or I treat them like they were my own.
*Let’s hear it for Ritalin! Yeeaaaa!
It’s more than that though, a lot more. Most the stories I’ve got would possibly embarrass someone who I don’t want to hurt. Sometimes things go bad, and people need someone to be there to help pull them out of the mire. Sometimes the mire is metaphorical, sometimes it’s literal. Even if all you really need is for someone to be there and tell you everything will be alright, or to listen to you pour your heart out, or just to stand there while you do what needs to be done yourself knowing you have some back up if you need it. I’ve shown up for most things, whenever I’m able really. If I think it would be bad to remind you about the situation, I try not to. I certainly don’t tell other people, because they don’t need to know about that shit. So even if a story involves me, it will often involve other people who might not want their information spread around lightly.
Like the story I was thinking about telling today, for example.
Part of being there for people goes beyond being there for them today though and not mentioning their name when you tell their story. If you have a horrific situation that you need help out of, it’s not going to be less horrific tomorrow. It basically means I’ve got to be there for you tomorrow and forever remembering the situation, but not mentioning it to anyone if they don’t need to know about it. It also means not reminding you about it, because while dealing with it has some merit, so does leaving it the hell alone once you have. Considering all those things that I’ve been willing to do, even talking about it in veiled terms, would rake people over the coals again. They’d know what I was talking about, and that would be enough.
I’m often quite good at giving details that sound interesting or would perk up a person’s ears, but omit details to such and extent that there really isn’t any private information left. The thing is, even when you strip a story of identifying marks, the person who the story is about can still recognize it. So, when in doubt, I normally opt to not tell the story. I do still have an occasional pang when I look at something I posted while tired or keyed up and find myself saying “Ooh, that probably didn’t need to get said” when I talk about a specific situation. I always find myself wondering if I said too much, or was I so guarded that I was incoherent? This is the worst of both worlds because it confuses you and leaves just enough that the person I’m talking about gets reminded about it.
As a result, there are a lot of stories you’ll never get to read. And really, how am I going to tell you and believe that it’ll be safe? How can I tell you anything without inadvertently hurting someone by reminding them of worse times? I suppose that I can’t, which is fine I guess because there are already so many situations that I don’t talk about that it wasn’t funny, then became funny, then became not funny again and now has become absolutely hilarious.
I can form the subtleties better in person, and of course those stories aren’t set down in semi permanence on the internet like they are here. If you get to sit down with me in person, and catch me while I’m in a mood, maybe I’ll tell you an interesting story or two sometime while giving you no idea who I’m talking about. Though really, probably not. I usually talk about other things besides personal histories, because blabbing just doesn’t pay.
Considering all the harmless (or mostly harmless) things I don’t tell you about myself, I can’t really see me telling you too much about other people. That’s what makes a secret different than just a fact or story about a person.
So that’s why you don’t get a story today. Still though, it’s not like I’m cheating you out of content or anything. I’ve got another 26 posts lined up where I talk about movies you’ve probably never heard of and drop in references to all sorts of disparate things next to each other because I like the juxtaposition of putting Torquemada next to t.A.T.u. and then throwing in Elisha Cook Jr. for the hell of it.Feeling:  contemplative What am I listening to?: Hans Zimmer - The Stone Drag |
even when you strip a story of identifying marks, the person who the story is about can still recognize it
Not to mention, several people about whom the story isn't will recognize it as being about them.
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