On Trust

[shadesong]

Just want to start out by saying hey, cool, two bitchy rants and I haven't lost any friends. Thanks for sticking around, guys. :)

Now. I think we got a little sidetracked in discussion last night... the thing that I found the most upsetting was *not* that he told his girlfriend, it was his smug condescending attitude in the first place and, when I called him on it, the vitriolic bullshit he spewed on AIM.

But this post is about trust and how I view it.

I know things about many of you guys that you've told me in confidence - even without saying "This is a secret and you cannot tell anyone ever." And when I feel that I need to discuss one of those things with yendi, I'll ask you if that's okay - because I regard that as your information, and figure that if you wanted yendi to know, you'd have told him yourself. Or told me to tell him. You may not *mind* him knowing, but if there's even a chance that you might not want him to know, I'm not going to make that judgement call. I'm going to ask you. That's my policy. Because I know some highly sensitive shit about most of the people in my life.

Examples. And I want to clarify that none of you know these people, they've all been out of my life for longer than I've known you.

I know three guys who've schtupped their sisters.
I know a guy that was present at a murder.
I know a guy who's so in the closet that he has never touched another person in a sexual way.

I'm the *only* person any of these people have ever told about these things.

Do you think they want me telling my SO?

I don't.

Think about what you may have told me. Do you want me to tell yendi? If you do, just let me know. If you don't, just know that it's between us unless you specifically say otherwise.

Comments

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

*thwap*

If that describes you, boy, go get some!

No, seriously, this was a guy who was really tormented about it. Thought he was defective and evil. Goddamn Mormon brainwashing.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Well, I have a lot of issues myself... got to write about 'em at some point.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

It's okay. I think the Statute of Limitations has expired on most of what I've done. Except maybe that incident involving the donkeys, the supermodels and the lundromat dryers.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

See, I heard about that, but I wasn't going to say anything. :)

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Is there a statute of limitations on insurance fraud?

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

I've discovered through experience that when a friend is in a serious relationship with someone else, you might as well assume that the s/o knows any information that the friend does. That might not be totally fair, but it happens. I know that when I was married, me and my husband basically told each other everything, but we were kind of a package unit and everyone basically knew that we were that way with each other.

Of course, I have also learned through experience not to tell anyone anything on the internet that I do not want at least 100 random people to know. It's amazing what technology has done to break down personal privacy.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Yeah... the problem I had here was that a) he knew that this stuff was allegedly just between us and b) the info had *nothing* to do with Shana, he was just being gossipy.

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't worry - I agree that it was a shitty thing to do. Just sharing my own jaded experience. I had similar happpen to me last year in a very bad way and it colored my belief in the world, kinda.