Back in 2006 I was involved in a situation where I felt compelled to lie in order to keep a secret. Two of my good friends were dating each other… For privacy matters let’s just keep the names as Pepito and Pepita… I had known both of them for more than 4 years and they had been dating for about 1 or 2 months…
Pepita had just gotten out of a long term relationship and had informed me about having feelings for her ex boyfriend while she was dating Pepito. To make a very long story short, Pepita had asked me to lie about where she was to Pepito because she was going to meet up with her ex boyfriend and didn’t want pepito to know. I got a phone call later that day from pepito asking me if I knew where she was because she hadn’t been answering her phone and was wondering where she was… It turned into this huge conflict between the two because pepito had speculated that she was hanging out with her ex- boyfriend… I had Pepita on one side begging me not to tell Pepito anything, and then I had Pepito calling me every second trying to convince me to tell him anything I knew… I ended up lying to Pepito telling him that I knew nothing of where she went or had been doing..
During this time, I had felt a sense of empowerment. I felt that I had the ability to protect her secret and protect her against scorn. In telling pepito I feel like I would be intruding her privacy, at the same time I felt terrible in not telling him because he was a good friend of mine for longer than Pepita and he should have the right to know that his girlfriend is not in love with him and cheated on him with her ex-boyfriend… I promised Pepita I wouldn’t say anything first so I wanted to keep my promise in order to avoid even more conflict… Either way someone was going to get hurt so I decided to just keep things to myself. After all, Pepito had learned the truth and was devastated…
It’s interesting to think how many times a day I tell a little white lie to avoid a secret to unfold… Or how I avoid certain words or information to protect others… I can only imagine how many government documents have been kept from the public …. Is it for our protection or theirs???
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I was fascinated by your honest reaction of empowermment in having secret information. I think that's a very human reaction, though most would deny it. It's not only morally, but logistcally complex: where is the person now, will our stories match up, is the other person suspicious? Keeping to the story, knowing the whole truth while others know only a part, is a pretty heady experience.
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
George