Secrets. Loyalty. I wrote a real-life story about it recently and I feel that when it comes to life in general, those two would have to go hand in hand.
You’re my friend whom I value and it’s my duty as your friend to show absolute and undisputed loyalty to you since I call you my friend. That means I stand by you at all times. It means I defend you to people whether or not you did something wrong, then afterwards I could ask you if you did what you were accused of. It means having your best interest at heart at all times and then most of all, being able to keep your secrets.
I blabbed a lot about all these because I just want us to get the picture. I want that we see how much this person, my friend or family member means to me because if you view it in the sense of an average friend or a family member that you honestly couldn’t care less about, the answer will be pretty straightforward. Especially when everyone wants to come across as this really good person.
But when you put into consideration how deep your feelings and loyalty run for this friend or family member, you’d realize that it’s not that simple. It’s not just black and white and there are a lot of gray areas in between.
So, coming to the main issue, my close friend(let’s just stick with that for the sake of clarity)who I value so much tells me a secret and pleads that I tell no one. But this secret is detrimental to my other friend who I also value so much. Do I break the former’s trust and divulge the secret or not?
It's tricky because I tried thinking of a possible scenario for this. Maybe, my close friend is desperately in love with this guy and they’re even currently doing the monkey dance but she knows that this guy is the actual boyfriendof my other friend. This other friend who’s noticed the recent behaviour of her guy and how indifferent and cold he’s acting towards her gets worried sick, goes into depression, loses sleep and suffers a lot of emotional trauma because she doesn’t know what’s going on. However, the initial friend also begs that she loves this guy too much to ignore him. (sorry about my confusing scenario, that’s the only situation I could draw)
Well, my first impulse is to say that they’re both insane for being with this guy, and they should leave the id**t for fluff’s sake. But I won’t say that outrightly even though I know that’s what needs to happen at the end of the day.
But the point is that I have to make my friend, the secret-hoarding one, see how detrimental it would be to her in the long run. I feel humans would react more quickly to bad news when they know that it directly affects them. Like the nearer it is to home, the swifter you would see them look for solutions. Cynical, I know.
I’d make her see that she would feel worse and whatever emotions she’s feeling would be on a higher and more excruciating level if something bad happens to the other friend health-wise because of her actions. I wouldn’t divulge the secret because it’s not my secret to tell and no matter how I’d put it, it would still sound like I'm hust being malicious against the owner of the secrets, hence, I’d tell her that in the best interest of all, she should divulge the secret before it escalates.
The truth is bitter but it’s better to get it out of the way so it doesn’t expand into something irredeemable. Because that’s the thing about secrets. Evolving into something we can’t control the more it stays hidden.
So yeah, that’s my answer. I wouldn’t divulge what’s not mine to tell but I’ll not try to indulge in something that I clearly know would be detrimental to the other person.
All images are mine.
This is my response to the morally-encompassed Secret Topic by @galenkp.
Have a beautiful weekend.❤️