In my rare cases, it’s been one of those issues where I didn’t know they were keeping it from someone BUT it’s something that should be obvious if you thought about it for a second, OR, they claim they told me it was a secret, but it was not obvious. And I have to say, “At no point did you tell me this was a secret.” Which, you know, makes them look WORSE because now it looks like it was not only a secret, but they were intentionally covering it up as well. And then somehow that’s my fault. It becomes a game of “he said, she said,” and I lost some friends over that over the decades. Was I right? Yeah, but that’s not the point.

The problem is people lie all the time. I do my best, but sometimes I don’t get those clues. And sometimes? I have had people lie FOR ME when there was no need to begin with. Like someone tried to “cover up” where I was some evening from my wife, when my wife knew where I was (a goth club). But then he claimed I was with him, and I wasn’t. So that started a whole mess. I had to explain, “I was still at the goth club, he thinks I was with him, because he thought you weren’t supposed to know I was at the goth club, and ‘was doing me a solid’ for no reason.” It got to the point I told everyone, “Never lie for me. Either I can stand on my own actions, or I deserve to get caught for being stupid. I am not someone who can keep track of things that actually happened, much less lies.” Lies make me panicky because, well, like I said earlier, I have accidentally exposed people.

I try not to. But I make mistakes.