Pssst ... Guess What I Just Heard??

Are you good at keeping secrets? Are you, really? I think I'm pretty decent at it -- people don't seem to mind telling me confidential information, trusting me to keep my lips sealed, which I generally do.

And it's generally accepted that secrets don't remain secrets, and confidential information generally leaks somehow (as much as we try to stop it). After all, two sayings come to mind.

- Everyone has a best friend. And you always share with your best friend, don't you?
- 1 + 1 = 11. If you've told 2 people, it will get passed to 9 more.

So consider this: you are told a secret, and your source says, "Don't tell anyone, okay? Noone." That's a pretty clear message, right? So ... who do you tell anyway? Come on, be honest. Is your spouse/partner (as a rule) excepted from that stated restriction? For me, no: most of the time, I don't tell heR. But it wasn't like that with Her and hEr; dunno what's different. Does your source assume that "noone" actually means "noone except him/her"?

And sometimes I tell people, but very rarely, and usually masked under complete anonymity and to people who are far away from that person -- I figure this gives me the chance to seek different opinions on whatever the issues are, while keeping that person's secret safe (because you don't know who they are, and chances are, you don't even know the person).

But hey, don't tell anyone, okay?