"every time i've fallen for someone i can't tell them because i feel like that secret is what stands between me and feeling completely empty. now i like someone again, but guess what? i can't say anything because it just feels futile."
-anonymous-

fmk. there's these really popular online sites that allow anonymous posters to confess their deepest and darkest. while some of them can be amusing, the confessions get real boring after awhile. what do most of the confessions have to do with? someone they like, someone they want to fuck, someone they want killed. that's it. after reading twenty or so of these "confessions" you start to think that people should really have better things hidden inside.

i would really enjoy it if the purpose of these sites was to somehow ironically point out exactly how un-secret or shocking these types of emotions are. but i doubt that's what most people get out of the exercise. now, i'm a big fan of people confessing things, and am all for daily confessionals (journals) or having weekly sessions of therapy to talk things out, but if the thing that sticks in your crawl is some version of "fuck, marry, kill," doesn't that seem extremely boring?

then again, i'm no different. i mean, skeletons in the closet rarely take the form of anything other than love or hate. i'm not exactly sure why this is. maybe because we're trained to keep our more volatile emotions inside? i've often thought of how exciting it would be if everyone revealed all of their thoughts and desires to their closest friends (and by closest friends i mean, of course, me). man, what a gossip column that would make. heck, i've reasoned that i should lead the charge toward total disclosure. however, after additional reasoning, you kind of realize that it's not worth it. because quite frankly, showing 100% of yourself to the world leaves you with 0% for yourself. and that just doesn't add up.

this desire to say things to people, even if it's anonymous, is just so weird. does keeping a secret inside just tear you up? are we somehow just all evolutionarily predisposed to be loudmouths if we can get away with it? is the telling connected with a desire for being discovered?

once, a friend of mine wrote me a very personal email that she ended up emailing directly to the worst person she could have sent it to. freudian slip? or just a simple address error (we didn't have any letters in our name in common mind you)? how do these things happen?

ps - what's even crazier is that a few of these sites have had their contents transcribed into popular books. why are people buying books of this stuff? it's available for free online. then again, why did i just write a book about blogging? blogging is designed to be easy and accessible for all, yet there exist (much to my chagrin) dozens of books on how to blog. but why shoot a gift horse in the mouth right?