As I caught up on my TV shows last night, heavy eyelids eclipsing the waning moments of FX's newest show, 'Terriers,' a relatively disturbing scene left me restless at night. Lost in my thoughts on my now-dark drive into the office, the lingering effects still crept in and out, seeping between cursed out rapid breakers (1. (I can't do superscript for footnotes, so I'll just throw a number and a period in a parenthesis to show a side tangent. Read at bottom)). Killing the first few minutes at work, reading my favorite sports writer's new column, once again, the topic once again resurfaced. This is the reason for what you see below.
The scene in Terriers to which I am referring revolves around a cheating girlfriend. Scared, unstable, and noticeably upset, she invites her boyfriend's best friend to breakfast to confide in him, a scene eerily reminiscent of Gwyneth Paltrow and Morgan Freeman in Se7en. Long story short, Morgan Freeman's advice parallels the show, in which there can be a decided advantage to keeping a secret. While the topic of the secret varies, the message is still clear: to save the relationship, keep the secret. As Freeman says, "your marriage would just wither, and die altogether." In 'Terriers,' the advice is 'never tell him. That's what you do.'
My most often quoted line, 'you know there's a flipside to that coin' (mainly because 80% of what I do here is present the other side of the argument...). In this sports column about Randy Moss, the Vikings and Patriots, and Twitter, Bill Simmons has some principles to uphold. As he describes, "I am a big 'don't make it worse, come clean' guy... People are only as good as their word."
Thus begins the moral debate.
I wrote about keeping secrets back in May, but I wrote about them in a battling the dramatic, avoiding conflict, and keeping things simple kind of way. I see the previous scenarios as a different breed. We're not talking about covering up the fact that you've tried an array of illegal drugs, or that you really got a 2.5gpa, not 3.5gpa in college; those are the little things I was speaking to previously: cover-ups that might not affect situations one way or another, but added together, create a blanket of deception. This time I'm talking about relationship altering, life altering, people changing, big ass things. And not everyone comes across stuff like this. Some of you might go your whole life without there ever being an elephant in the room. But place yourself in a situation where you have something to have. Let's use that 'Terriers' situation. Say you're in a good, faithful, trusting, encouraging, blossoming relationship, a few steps away from engagement, seemingly perfect relationship. One drunken night, idiotic, barbaric, animalistic passion overrides logic and you go home with something you know you won't be able to have in the future. The person you commit infidelity with is not as important as the act itself. Now you scamper home, embarrassed, dirty, nervous, and completely regretful, the question looming: do I confess?
Scenario #1 ('he's hanging by his neck in his fxcking closet;' sorry, Baseketball reference.): Lock that little nugget in the deepest vault of your brain and tell no one. Do everything you can to forget it even happened. Convince yourself of the lie. Time advances, as it usually does, and the farther this event falls in the past, the easier it is to deal with. The relationship flourishes, engagement rings, congratulations, wedding planning, holidays with the family, the ceremony, the honeymoon, kids, school, etc. But for those last 10, 15 years, how have you been sleeping? How many times do you clench your stomach during a movie involving affairs, which, let's be honest, happens quite frequently. How long can you live with the guilt? And that's only if the secret manages to stay hidden. Let's say you run into that late night encounter while you're out with your significant other. Now there's trouble in relationship heaven. What if 5 years have passed, and now you have to tell the truth? What kind of outcome will that produce? As Bill Simmons says, "...the cover-up is always worse than the crime. Any good public relations guy will tell you that." Not to mention how much more will have been invested as time passes.
The counter argument is that confession will result in crushing the person you care about most, and you can bring yourself to hurt someone that much. Well the two outcomes that I just describe either end with crippling self-guilt or delayed disaster. Unless you're conscienceless, one of the two is inevitable. And neither seems acceptable.
Scenario #2 ('Coop went to Disney World;' sorry, Baseketball reference.): Face the music. Tell the truth. Confess. Lay your cards on the table. There is no bluffing, no games, no deceits, no tells. Your chips are all in, your hand is flipped, your sunglasses are removed, hat thrown aside, and nothing up your sleeve. Is there any other way to face it?
If you tell me that sometimes, 'scenario #2' is the worse outcome, I would agree. Sometimes, telling someone the truth about a major incident can lead to pain, suffering, separation, and misery. But, that's kind of how it works. If they forgive you, then all is well. If they don't, then you brought it on yourself. Your love was either stronger enough to prosper, or flawed enough to fail. But you owe it to yourself and to those involved to be honest.
There are certain situations where I am hypocritical and believe in the whole 'ignorance is bliss' thing. There are so many current topics, news stories, leaders, politics, and everything else in the world that I keep my head buried about. Those who know me know I don't watch the news, read the paper, etc. Right now, I have enough to worry about and to enjoy without adding the ebb and flow of the world. It's a selfish outlook, but for me, it's what I have to do to keep my head above water. I'm sure, one day not far from now, I'll look back critically at my early 20s self, but until then, I'm fine where I am. But 'ignorance is bliss' when it comes to personal matters, matters of the heart, is not comparing apples to apples. Not staying caught up in the current affairs of the world is one thing. Not being informed about current affairs of my significant other is a whole different story. You can't manipulate the lives of the ones you love. That should not be up to you to decide.
PostScript: This is one of the more polar opinions I've taken on any topic, and I understand there are outlying circumstances in which someone has the right to hold back the truth. As always, I try to write about across the board generalizations, and by no means is 100% ever the right answer.
(1.) Rapid Breakers: I drive 40 miles a day, 30 of which are on the Edens expressway. Depending on when I leave, I am caught up in between 30 to 90 minutes of stop and go, bumper to bumper traffic. Many days I've tried to brainstorm enough about traffic patterns to spawn an entire blog, but I just can't rant and bitch for 800 words and think that anyone will give a shit. So here it is in a nutshell. It is my firm belief that a large percentage of traffic is caused by shitty drivers. Mainly: people that brake too frequently, without paying attention, and people that have no idea how to merge. Bad mergers cause traffic, fine. I don't see them as often. But the assholes that are part of the four or five car group ahead of me that tap or hit their brakes every 5 seconds need to be slapped. Every time they unnecessarily hit their brakes, WHACK. These people are not paying attention, don't take into consideration the trend and flow of traffic, hit their brakes when a car in THE OTHER LANE hits theirs, and more times than not, is usually caught up talking on the phone, texting, eating, smoking, or jamming out. If not, they're just a waste of space and need to get off the roads. Pay attention, notice that the cars ahead of you aren't slowing down too much, try just taking your foot off the accelerator for a while. This isn't damn rocket science. But no. Instead, every brainless driver abruptly hits the brake, so the next person does too, without thinking, then all of a sudden, 30 cars later, complete stop, traffic, misery, and a long effing commute. Am I the only one that gets pissed about this????
you're awesome.
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