Unhappy Hour: Secrets Don't Make Friendships

No one is as secretive as they think they are.

Especially now, when the Internet and Facebook control the world.  The problem with having an online life is that your entire existence has a paper trail.

Yeah, you might think you can hide your secret dating profile, or the fact that you have a new significant other from your ex.  But sorry, eventually the new one will want you to prove your commitment to them by making it official.  Not just official, Facebook official.  Otherwise, your relationship isn’t real, right?
Intuition is a thing of the past.  Now, all anyone needs to judge you is a computer and basic-level creeping skills.

Even though private detectives are about as obsolete as print media nowadays, everyone has a little creep inside of them.

Don’t deny it.  It just might take a little prodding to find.

Every time you get on your boyfriend’s Macbook and the missed connections link is highlighted purple, it’s not because he thinks it’s funny.  It’s because he’s looking for Tiffani, the tattooed biker he saw pulling away from Wegman’s with a rotisserie chicken.

But, what can we do if people are lying to us?  Personally, I’d rather leave passive-aggressive post-it’s all over a toaster oven than confront someone about their lies.  This is probably not the best solution, but I like to think of it as “passion-aggression.”  You don’t creep if you don’t care.  And you don’t fight with nothing to lose.

So, liars, what makes you lie?  According to “Psychology Today,” liars lie to make themselves feel better.  People who lie aren’t happy with themselves, and want to boost their own self-esteem. Not that that really comes to a surprise to anyone, however; there is a difference between a white lie and deception.

As someone who has been lied to (a lot) in academia, love and life, and who has also been know to tell a lie or two (maybe just one though, I haven’t really been counting), I’m pretty much an expert on this.  As a (clearly) qualified expert, I hope the secret you’re keeping right now makes you feel good, cause it won’t be secret for long.

It might seem like I’m being bitter, cynical or too harsh.
Everybody does it!  No big deal.  I promise I’m no more bitter than a rum punch, no more cynical than Roger Ebert and no more harsh than my fourth grade elementary school teacher who sent me to the principal’s office for going to help in the kindergarten classroom instead of going recess.  You shouldn’t be worried about what I think, you should be worried that whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, blogging, Gchat, Google +, Craigslist, OkCupid, or MySpace (it’s not, probably), you will never be able to delete enough cookies to keep the purple links from popping up accidentally.

The truth might hurt, but secrets hurt more.