The Meaning of Secrets

I couldn't think of the term double standard, so I almost couldn't write about secrets until I remembered that term. Word-memory problem, but I've got it now - double standard. That's what I have about secrets. For me, I love secrets as the guardians of my privacy. It's not even that they or I am guarding anything particularly worthy of a secret, but the very act of having information that no one else has. It's strange to me sometimes when people who are close to me don't want to know my secrets, don't want to get closer, but at the same time I'm not a very good defender of my own secrets, so I don't really want to be asked anyways.

The double standard is this: I HATE other people's secrets. I can't stand it. I get suspicious and paranoid. I assume that every mis-statement, omission or hesitation is reflective of a grander scheme to somehow make me look of feel like as ass. It's probably because of how I was raised - I'm sure that JR would say so, at any rate, always finding fresh fodder in family-of-origin. Certain things were just kept as secrets among the family - other things were certainly meant to be secret from the children, the girl children or specifically just me, but were covertly shared or overheard.

I wonder how much of that was intentional secrecy, protection or ignorance instead of the spite I considered it. I do consider it spiteful for people to have secrets against me. Getting to know people deeply has become difficult, because I don't dare ask people personal questions they might not answer - if they don't answer, they have a secret and what does that say about me?

I'm rambling about secrets. Basically, I need to remember the four agreements again and that it isn't all about me. Another way to phrase that, in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, "What are men thinking about? Nothing." What is anybody thinking about? Usually not me and that's probably a good thing.