luna

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

setec astronomy

if you've seen the film sneakers, then you know hidden in these two words is the phrase, "too many secrets".

is it good to be at the receiving end of a confidence? no matter how trivial, how embarassing, how evil, how lewd, how shocking — should it be taken as a compliment?

i was sent a slumbook type questionnaire by a friend a few months back that i gamely answered and sent to other friends as well. one of the questions asked was, "do you trust others easily?" only one answered "yes". and to the question, "have you ever told a secret you swore not to tell?", almost everyone answered, "yes".

three incidents nearly two decades ago put a stop to my "random" confiding. the first was when i told someone from an organization i joined that i have a sister diagnosed with schizophrenia. i confided it over lunch, was a bit emotional because that day i had just had a quarrel with that sister of mine. on our way back to our tambayan, he went ahead of us then declared to everyone there, "pare, yung pamilya ni mira, may sayad". so the confidence turned into a joke. any other time maybe i would have just laughed it off, but that day, i felt kinda raw. i instantly regretted telling him.

the second time, i told a fellow staffer of our campus paper of my surreal experience when i slept over at a friend's house. at that time, it was a mystery to me if i had something going on with that particular friend. to the fellow staffer i narrated how in the middle of the night i thought i heard my friend tell me how he felt about me, thinking i was asleep. i wasn't asleep. but i don't think i was fully awake either. i was just in the borders. this tale of mine apparently reached him through another person but i'm not sure how accurate the version was. i was confronted about it, and i, being too scared to hear rejection, simply denied it. it was never brought up again. and a lesson in "who you tell your secrets to" was once again learned.

and finally, the last incident that had me thinking better of confiding to unworthy friends was when i revealed a very difficult decision i made to a close female friend. to say that she was shocked and utterly disappointed in me is an understatement. she kept crying that I had to console her. trust that friend of mine to turn my revelation into something about her. a series of "how could you do that?" and "now pa, that i'm reviewing for the bar." needless to say, i am quite positive she has disclosed this to our other friends as well. that i have not been burned on the stake surprises me.

the valuable lesson may seem to be distrust, but it really isn't. i think it is merely caution. i still confide to friends but it has become quite rare. let me be the receiver instead. and i may have honed this well judging from the way mere acquaintances have decided to confide in me things they'd rather not tell their own friends. as for my friends, well, sometimes what they tell me border on the "whoa. too much info. we have to draw the line somewhere." (but too late i am now scarred for life) — i just take those as tokens of trust.

for now my partner is my confidant. for most part. i think we are each other's.

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