Every morning, I go through my social media upon awakening. I know there are writers who go straight to their manuscript, even skipping the perusal of their email inbox, but that’s not me. Once I tried to go the disciplined route, but then all I did was wonder what I was missing, so now I just go straight to Facebook, twitter, Instagram, my email inbox, Zite (which is kind of like my morning newspaper), and most recently, Secret.
Most of the secrets are prurient in nature–or maybe I just have horny friends. Maybe your friends aren’t as sexual, and the secrets in your network might run along the lines of “I didn’t scoop my cat’s litterbox this morning” as opposed to “I like my girlfriend, but after pegging, I want to try the real thing.”
I had to go look up “pegging.”
I am learning a lot of things on Secret–more than just secrets.
So many of the secrets are about dissatisfaction, and many are from a place of fear. Or longing. A few are whimsical.
Some of my friends love Secret. They’ve hooked up with other Secret users–though how, I have no idea, because your identity is supposedly anonymous on the thing. Maybe you can figure out people through diction. Once I posted, “No bra” on Secret, and no fewer than four of my friends immediately figured out it was me. One of them even posted, “Hi Christine.”
I guess I’m the kind of person who would have no bra on. And post about it on Secret.
Some of my friends find Secret useless. I don’t find it useless–I’ve used one of the secrets in one of my short stories. It turned out to be a critical component of the story’s ending. So, useful.
And then I got right back on Secret and confessed/shared that I’d used a secret for a short story.
Some people think Secret is the anti-Facebook. The posts there are often dismal, glum disheartening. Not shiny-humble-brag-Facebook post stuff. But it’s also a great place to put what you would otherwise drunk-tweet. Maybe a lot of people drunk-post on Secret. That would explain a lot.
Then there is the concept of whether or not a secret is a secret on Secret. (Did you see what I did there)?
I remember learning the word “bimil” (I would use hangul here, but I can’t figure it out on my apple keyboard, so forgive). I learned it from my cousin’s toddler sons in Korea–they leaned in and asked, “Auntie, do you want to know a bimil?”
What is a bimil? Because before saying yes, I wanted to make sure bimil didn’t mean turd or something like that. Because, toddler boys.
Bimil is the Korean word for secret.
And then they whispered in my ear. What I heard was baby gobbledigook–hissing sounds like whispers. But not actual words. That’s a good way to keep a secret, I thought.
I’ve been writing more essays these days while on summer break from my novel revision. It means that in some ways I’m revealing more secrets to the world.
Friends and acquaintances have come up to me in the wake of MINT’s publication in The Rumpus and observed, “You are so open, that’s not something I could bring myself to share.”
Huh, I said.
I wonder if secrets are good things. And if we can ever keep our secrets hidden.
The other night, someone hurt my feelings. I didn’t even know my feelings were hurt. And that person certainly didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. But my body spoke the truth; it recoiled and curled around itself.
My body visibly winced. And I then had to…talk…about…my feelings. Which was good. It is good not to have those kinds of secrets.
And how do we reveal our secrets? In an anonymous yet public forum? In private? In secrecy? In public? What is safe?
These are some of the secrets on Secret–a snapshot from the other morning.
1) “True love is a form of mental illness.”
You are supposed to “heart” if you agree or like it. There is something about this that I don’t like, so I don’t swipe. But the thing is, my best relationships were borne out of my own vulnerability.
2) “I hooked up with this Chinese guy–30 minutes later I was horny again.”
Is that a good thing or a bad thing, I wonder.
3) “Flying to LA and all I can think about is blowing the muscle ginger next to me.”
That’s a good flight.
4) “I could marry this girl and that freaks me out.”
Go for it, dude, I want to say.
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