Secrets and Non-Lies

I am an emotional person. I'm a sucker for that cleansed feeling you get after a good hard crying session, the kind where you can hardly breathe and reams of snot stream from your nose. Sometimes I muse fondly that this intimate acquaintance with my own emotions should qualify me as a superior kind of confidante, the ideal shoulder for my friends to cry on. But it doesn't really work like that.

I think being the kind of person other people like to tell their secrets to has little to do with the type of reaction they think they will get. Sure, my friends know that I'll empathise with whatever's bothering them. They know I will offer hugs and muffins and stroke their ego all they want. But most of the time the urge to confess something is not a rationalised action, It's an impulse, an overpowering urge to unburden some of that grubby knowledge that's been clawing at you from the inside.

So it's partly to do with being there, presence alone enough to persuade someone who wants to spill that you are the one to spill to. But the quality people respond to more often is a kind of ability to invite speech through silence. Therapists use this, and cops, and maybe good friends too. My friend Alan probably knows way more about me than he ever wanted to because he is adept at this, at quietly giving the impression that you can just go ahead and say whatever the hell you want to because whatever it is he'll listen and probably understand too.

As a shy person, this quality destroys my limites reserves of self-restraint. It makes me fizz over. Anyone with a tendancy to be more quiet than otherwise will tell you how exhausting it can be to be around people who would rather talk than wait in silence for you to speak. It is rare and almost exhilerating to be around someone who just waits to hear what you have to say. This silence has an intoxicating effect on me. The knowledge that the listener will hear anything, that of all the things you could say, they'll listen to it all...

This is why two years ago when nobody knew why there were a pair of pants in the communal hallway of our building, Alan knew. This is why me writing "Playground, wink wink' will mean nothing to anyone but him. The ability to listen well is why I told him these things. Perhaps more important though, is that Alan also has the ability to go on keeping his mouth shut, which is why he'll stay a good friend.