Don't Tell Anyone, But....

How many times have you started a story with "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but...". If you aren't supposed to tell anyone, why are you? I've realized lately that I'm a big of a blabbermouth. Someone close to me tells me a secret, and I promise not to tell anyone. But then, about an hour later, I'm talking to someone who would want to know such news, and it slips. Of course, I feel bad afterwords, especially when the person who trusted me finds out that I betrayed them. Most secrets aren't life-changing, but being able to blab the small stuff is like a gateway for blabbing the stuff that really matters. Like, if a girl friend tells you she kinda likes a guy and tells you not to tell anyone, but then you tell that guy, you betray her trust. If you get accustomed to breaking the trust like that, and she has no one else to confide in when she has a real secret, like she had sex with someone or something like that, you probably won't be able to keep the secret.

This has come up with me recently. Joe has a super close group of friends (called the crew) who tell each other everything. Joe occasionally will tell me something that only the crew is supposed to know, and every now and then I accidentally let one of them slip. I always feel awful afterwards, especially when Joe confronts me in that passive-aggressive way (like "Hey, you kinda weren't supposed to tell anyone..."). Also, my group of girlfriends has recently gotten romantically entangled with the crew boys, and so I've been the middleman between them. I sometimes forget to consider the girls' feelings and tell the guys everything the girls say about them (which I know if they did that to me I would kill them). I've made a resolution to be a better secret-keeper, for the sake of my relationships. I don't want to be a person Joe or the crew or my girl friends can't trust. So, my mission is to keep my mouth shut. We'll see how it goes.
Love,
M