Why can't certain people keep a secret?

[YourSelf]

Have you ever noticed that some people really enjoy telling things about you to others, even if you don't want such things to be public (and sometimes even tell them that it ought to stay secret)?

Do they merely reveal other people's secrets because they have nothing else to say? Or because they want to win other people's faith by telling them everything they know?

In time I have learned to never reveal any secret (that I want to keep secret) about me to others, even to those who seem to act like close friends, because something always slips out of their tongues. Always.

Yet I recently repeated that mistake and - voilà! - the whole block knows about my secret plans...

[Jennihul]

"Gossiping" stems from a primal form of communication from when people had no other way of keeping tabs on what was going on in their world.

It's very difficult for people to shake that habit now that it tends to be more destructive than constructive.

I assume anything that I put "out there" will be eventually revealed. Therefore I try not to do things I will have to keep secret from anyone.

What I don't get is why people actually ask others to keep secrets for them. To me, it seems like people are testing their friends when they do that. Which is as evil a motivation as gossip is perceived to be.

Telling a secret about yourself to someone else is really gossiping on yourself. So that makes one a hypocrit, no?

Jennifer

[MidasGirl]

Originally Posted by YourSelf

Have you ever noticed that some people really enjoy telling things about you to others, even if you don't want such things to be public (and sometimes even tell them that it ought to stay secret)?

The reason that companies with secret recipes and secret codes reveal them only to a few (very few) "trusted" top employees, and then make them sign secrecy contracts and take oaths that leave them nauseous, is because humans cannot be trusted with a secret unless they are threatened with dire consequences. The human ego feeds on significance, and one of the best forms of having that significance is knowing you know something someone else doesn't. So to answer your question, they are meeting their need for significance when they talk about something you told them not to. But why would you tell someone something you felt shouldn't be known by other people, unless you yourself needed to feel significant by revealing it to that one person?

At any rate, you can't control what comes out of other peoples' mouths, and telling people things that you don't want known only serves to make you feel anxious wondering if they are actually going to tell. But then again, maybe you could just adopt the attitude that if people find out what you are trying to hide from them, it's no big deal. Which, at the end of the day, it really isn't. Unless you make it so.

[Jennihul]

I think people just love drama so if they lack it, they create their own...

Jennifer

[Sanity Panda]

Personally I've kept every secert that somebody has told me to specifically keep quiet about. Other information would be dependant on whether I believe it's significant and whether the person would want it kept a secert. You talk of others as if they constantly do this, but what I'd really like to ask is whether you believe you do this yourself?

It's hardly hypocritical to give out information about the self, and hope that it'd be kept private. A really really horrible comparison would be someone that is willing to share their body with anybody. People share information with others because they trust them and want to express themselves to these individuals. A secert doesn't have to be confined to one person, people can share a secert. Besides gossip is basically talking behind someones back, if you're talking about yourself how can that be considered as gossip?

[Jennihul]

It's raining really hard here.

Jennifer

[YourSelf]

Thanks for the explanations.

I would agree that I'd be hypocritical, if and only if I adopted a mindset in which I treated every person I know, both public and intimate friends, with the same level of trust.

But if I trusted certain persons more than others (or hope that I can trust them) I would tell them that I have a serious problem in my family, that I have some plans which aren't concrete yet, that I have a secret activity others aren't supposed to know.
I'm not sure whether revealing it would give me more significance as in gossiping, but rather some kind of relief.

Would you like the whole world to know about all your problems and issues you are writing about on this forum?

[anonfictional]

it seems that those type of people feel important when they know something that others don't and perhaps they cant contain the excitement so they blab

[YourSelf]

Yeah, now that I think of it most of the people who started revealing things about my private life are still low in social range and perhaps they are trying to become more popular by telling around my secrets.

Hey, isn't that the job or reporters/paparazzi, too?

[JimOfferman]

Originally Posted by YourSelf

Would you like the whole world to know about all your problems and issues you are writing about on this forum?

You can't post here and not let the 'whole' world know about it. At best, you can obfuscate the details a bit, so your words can't be directly traced to you - but that isn't a fail safe.

I've been surprised a few times about how adept people are at tracing the heavily redacted tales of my song lyrics in a foreign language (that would be English) back to the inspiring events - some times by the use of a single word! People are smart!

Now, as a general rule, I assume that everything I say (or sing) is no longer secret and conversely don't tell what must remain secret to anyone. That pretty much takes the wind out of the sails of any unwanted gossip...

[DayInTheLife]

Ok, here is the deal with secrets:

People like secrets because it gives them an acute sense of superiority. When you know something interesting, you feel superior in some small way to anybody who doesn't know it.

But you can't 'cash in' that superiority unless you prove to somebody else that you know something they don't. This is why people spill the beans. It is very gratifying for the ego.

Have you ever learned something very interesting and you are hoping that the other person hasn't heard it yet when you tell them? If your goal is just to convey this info, it should not matter if they know already. But you hope they don't know because it is gratifying to reveal that you know something they don't.

The gratification is particularly intense when the information is more exclusive or dramatic, such as details about an affair, or a huge breaking news story.

Sometimes people tell you a secret and then say "I shouldn't even be telling you this, so don't tell anyone else." They want to be gratified by revealing the secret to someone, but they hope you don't tell anyone because they have nothing to gain by that.

[Brutha]

There are different kind of secrets.

Hey, isn't that the job or reporters/

No, a good reporter doesn't publish everything he knows.
A reporter that publishes the name of his sources that want to remain anonymous will lose his job about it.

There are three kind of knowledge that a reporter has:
1) Things he can publish completly
2) Things he can publish without identifing his source
3) Things he can't publish but can use to understand the context of the situation
A reporter who doesn't know the difference will soon find himself without any source.

There is something like loyality.
Let say a reporter talks with Bush. Bush tells him under 3) that he thinks Cheney screwed up project XY.
If the reporter would print that it would make a story because an administrition is supposed to be loyal to each other.

Secrets are useful to allow sharing of knowledge without breaching loyality.