Everyone, at some point in their lives, has managed to keep confidential information a secret.
Whether it was an individual's embarrassing past or someone else's behavior that you weren't supposed to witness but did, most people generally manage to show restraint by not revealing secrets.
Until they don't.
Sometimes it depends on how scandalous the secrets are.
But some are relatively easier to keep than others.
Curious to hear from strangers who've managed to be tight-lipped, Redditor MrBowls asked:
"What’s a harmless/non-serious secret you’ve kept forever?"
These Redditors did what they could to keep up with appearances.
Covering Up Mom's Habit
"My mom was a meth addict. So my siblings and I grew up with very little. Normally she would pull her head out of her a** enough around the holiday season to sign up with a church or charity to get us a food box and some presents. However by the time I was 11 she was so far gone we could go weeks without seeing her leave her room or her be completely gone from the house. I entered a drawing contest at my school around this time. I won a $100 gift certificate to our local mall."
"One day after making sure my siblings made it to school I played hooky and walked to the mall(about 3.5 miles) I bought my three siblings some presents(almost forgot to get myself something ended up buying some discounted body wash) then had them wrapped there at the mall before trekking home. I hid the presents in the crawl space till the 24th (I was right our mom did nothing) when my siblings were distracted by a movie, I snuck out and put the box of presents on the front porch before knocking and running away. I snuck back in the back door by the bathroom and heard my siblings yelling 'someone left a box on the porch that says Merry Christmas' I had also spent the last week before winter break going door to door asking for canned food donations, saying it was for a food drive at my church (I didn't have a church) so that we didn't spent the whole winter break hungry."
"I'm so glad all 4 of us made it out of our childhood, and not one of us took the same path as the woman who birthed us Edit:spelling."
– Beautiful_Ad1219
Keeping Up A Ruse
"My friend is a major, major, Death Cab for Cutie fan. They came to our city a couple years ago, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to afford the tickets to go. She was upbeat about it, but I know she was devastated by it."
"I bought tickets. Two days before the show, I told her that the friend I originally planned to take couldn’t go, and would she please come with me? There was no other friend. Told her I loved the band and would be sad to miss them. She of course accepted, and had the time of her life."
"She’s doing much better now, but every couple of Christmases or Birthdays, she gets me some Death Cab merchandise because 'she knows how much I love the band.'"
"I can’t stand their music. I literally have them blocked on Spotify. But now it’s gone too far where I can’t tell her."
– chernygal
A Worthy Replacement
"First marriage to my late wife, on the day of the wedding, the ring got stolen out of my car. I was freaking out. My two best men went into overdrive and took a picture I had if the ring and went to I don't know how many jewelry stores explaining what had happened and if they had a ring that was similar."
"They went to this really great jewelry maker so said, 'I have something that is really close, give me a bit and I can make it perfect.'"
"He worked his a** off and got it done with about an hour to spare, plus the managed to get my window fixed."
"The three of us are the only ones who know. It stays that way! I ended up using that jewelry maker for any jewelry I needed and well I haven't stopped yet."
"He ended up telling my best men to not worry about the price and for me to come down after the honeymoon to work it out. I did and he gave it to me at the cost of the materials. He is a great guy. He retired during COVID."
– UtahCyan
Nobody needed to know. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
Crafty Dad
"My mum is a health nut (with probably disordered eating) who wouldn’t let us have cheese in the house when I was kid. When I was mid 20s, I bought a unit and my dad was helping me fix stuff up so I provided lunch. I said to him - bet you’re going to hate going back to work next week and not have any cheese on your sandwiches. It was then he told me his deepest secret, he had been buying blocks of cheese at work for years. I had no idea he was crafty. And my mum still doesn’t. Poor dad has been retired for years though so not sure on the current cheese consumption status."
– rumblemumbles
Don't Pet Raccoons
"One day I came home late at night drunk and decided to walk my dog. Just when we arrived outside my house my dog attacked a racoon hanging around the area. I ended up wrestling my malamute and freed the racoon from his jaws."
"Here's the thing. I was drunk and the racoon kinda just stared at me infront of me and I decided to try and pet the racoon. I got maybe one pet in before it took a chunk out of my finger. I ran into the house leaving a trail of blood up to my brothers room for help. A sleepless night in the hospital and 4 consecutive rabies shots later was the result."
"Everyone asked me what happened and I just told them while I heroically wrestled my dog to save the racoon I got bit in the process. They still don't know the real story. It still gets brought up 10 years year."
– August-thecow
Saving Dad's Life
"I was about 10 years old and was pretending to be sick to avoid going to school. This was the 1980's so the old-school, glass tube, mercury-filled thermometers were still a thing."
"My dad was getting ready to leave for work as I worked my magic to convince my mom to let me stay home for the day. Neither one of them was having it. I persisted."
"Out of frustration, my mom grabbed the thermometer and put it under my tongue. I knew it would read 98.6 and this was my only shot to avoid school for the day."
"Both of my parents stepped out of the room for a moment. I looked over and saw my dad's piping hot cup of coffee sitting on the counter awaiting his morning commute. I quickly dipped the thermo into the hot java."
"It instantly shattered emptying the toxic mercury into the coffee along with tiny shards of glass. I panicked. In my mind, there were only a couple possible outcomes. My dad dies of heavy metal poisoning and a lacerated esophagus. Or, I fess up to what I did."
"I could hear them coming around the corner about to return to the kitchen. At the last possible second, I swatted my dad's mug off the kitchen counter smashing it on the floor creating a coffee explosion in my mom's freshly cleaned kitchen."
"They burst in the kitchen aghast at the mess I created. I reply with a flurry of sorrys and apologize profusely for being clumsy. My dad is furious because now he won't have coffee on his way to work. My mom is pissed and she starts cleaning up the mess."
"In the chaos everyone forgets about my claims of illness. I slipped the remainder of the broken thermo into the trash and went to the bus stop saving my father from a horrible death--at least in my mind at the time. Until this day, I have never told anyone about this."
– from_the_interwebz
These anecdotes will warm your heart.
Encouraging A Splurge
"I convinced my sister I had entered us both in a blog giveaway, I won a coupon but she won the grand prize , a $300 gift card to Lane Bryant. My sister was a size 16, and desperately needed new clothes but would spend money on her baby grandkids and thin adult daughters. This was the only way I could make sure she spent it on herself. It’s been 10 years. She’s doesn’t know."
"Edit: thank you kind strangers. I’m glad she doesn’t know what Reddit is, or she’d definitely figure this out !"
– Remarkable_Story9843
A Dying Mother's Legacy
"When my wife died, she had been working on 'special occasion' letters for all of our kids. Towards the end, the cancer had spread to her brain and she wasn’t able to focus on writing much, and when she did, it was often unintelligible gibberish. I tried to help her by taking dictation but she said it would mean more if it was in her own handwriting and wanted to finish it. She slipped into a coma and died after only getting through a handful of letters for our eldest child, leaving addressed envelopes only for our other two kids."
"I knew this would be devastating for the three kids, and possibly create conflict, so I paid a woman who specialized in calligraphy to literally duplicate my wife’s handwriting. I gave her the content, channeling my wife’s comments she made to me about what I thought would be meaningful words to our three kids when I had helped her dictate a few. And, as she wanted, I have passed them out on special occasions of wedding dates, birth of first child dates, first day of college dates, etc."
"My kids don’t know. They’ve even shared the ones she actually wrote with ones written by her surrogate and thus far the secret remains safe. I haven’t told anyone else this but Reddit and hope it stays here a secret as well. I’ll take it to my grave. I consider it harmless as it was her intent but cancer robs so much from people afflicted with it…including their best, most sincere attempts at helping others cope with the loss themselves."
"EDIT: Wow, thank you for all the awards and comments of encouragement gang. I’m humbled by some of the messages. Thank you."
– Walleyevision
As you see, secrets are complicated depending on the situation.
Some secrets are kept to not only respect the privacy of others, but also out of kindness to protect the positive illusion to disguise a cruel reality.
Can you be trusted with keeping a secret under any circumstance?