“Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes”

“Okay”

*Whispers overly dramatic situation between two people*  

Several days later bada-bing-bada-boom! The whole school knows what happened. Now your friendship is ruined between you and that salty snake for sharing your secret. But why?

Over the years, we have all discovered that people cannot keep secrets. It’s sad. You wanna trust someone so badly, but you are too worried: “Is my secret going to get out?” or “Will they tell?” People think that if they tell secrets, their ‘friends’ will like them and they will get more attention.  Yeah…that’s not going to happen.

When I tell you a secret, I want it to stay between you and me, not you, me, and the entire school. Okay? Remember that and you will be golden.

Yeah, people are salty enough to share your secrets like that. So it makes you wonder why people can’t keep their mouths shut. You could say “reasons be,” but that’s not why we are here. So here are some reasons why people have no control in keeping secrets:

1. Keeping secrets is quite a burden to hold inside the teenage brain. Everyone knows that keeping a secret is really stressful.
2. The secret is usually bad news (and who wouldn’t want to share juicy bad news?).
3. You have to lie or give information in order to keep a secret (who wants to lie?).
4. It feels good to let the cat out of the bag. It makes you feel better. It gives you ease to know you are not the only one who has the information about this juicy secret.

The Telegraph cites studies which show that if you tell a woman a secret, everyone will know in forty-seven hours and fifteen minutes. According to the Daily Mail, men can only keep a secret for two hours and forty-seven minutes. After all these years of thinking that men can keep a secret and women can’t! Hmm.

On a more serious note, don’t tell secrets. It’s not okay. Don’t be the person that nobody can trust; be the person that everyone trusts. Or in other words, don’t be a salty snake.