“Secrets are things we give to others to keep for us” ~ Elbert Hubbard

I am bad at secrets. Always have been.

I remember, when I was a little girl, getting a talking to about private versus public things. You know the talk your parents give you when you’re 4 or 5, right after you tell the neighbor about daddy’s special magazine collection (the one he keeps under the mattress). Your parents sit you down and explain that some things, while true, are only to be discussed with family. Or, in the case of Daddy’s girlie mags, not at all. 

Everyone gets one of those. I’ve gotten several. Not just when I was a little girl, either. And not just from my parents.

My boyfriend hates Facebook. Intensely private when it comes to his personal life, he sees no value in the social media realm outside of an arena for macotious behavior. In fact, the first thing he said when I showed him this blog was “Doh play yuh puttin’ ting about me there, eh.” (Oops.)

To his credit (and my eternal gratitude), he loves me despite my addiction to social media and the general logorrhea it encourages.  In fact, Facebook (and Twitter) are a mecca for folks like me. I’m a lifelong oversharer IRL, so the temptation to post random musings and potentially libelous statements worldwide in seconds is just too strong to resist.

This is where my beloved comes in. He’s spoken to me more than once about “telling people our business”. Avid reader and micro-blogger that I am, I am more than aware of the fact that the internet is written in ink. I make every effort, but now and then I let something slip. And I immediately think “He would KILL me if he saw this”. And then I breathe a sigh of relief. Because my boy does not now and will likely never own a Facebook (or Twitter) account. And even if he did, this social media maven knows just how to manipulate her privacy settings to avoid a problem. That is, until they change them again.

I am 150% aware of the fact that something I’ve posted is going to come back to bite me in the ass someday. That knowledge has absolutely no effect on my compulsion to tweet about having popcorn for dinner for the third night in a row.