# A secret you will never tell anyone **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 27, 2012, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798 "2012-08-27T08:42:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/61 "2012-08-28T03:16:56Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > A friend of mine died at 40 from anal cancer that started as a melanoma. Melanoma? The kind of skin cancer you get from excessive exposure to the sun? Yeah, I have pretty poor taste, but I will not go _there_ … ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/62 "2012-08-28T03:18:48Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Melanoma? The kind of skin cancer you get from excessive exposure to the sun? Yeah, I have pretty poor taste, but I will not go _there_ … I’m guessing it metastisized (hence the ‘started as melanoma’). Melanoma can be very aggressive. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/63 "2012-08-28T03:44:30Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > I miss [anon.penet.fi](http://anon.penet.fi). > -D/a Your secret is most definitely safe with me. It looks like you fell asleep with your head in your hands and your elbow slowly slid across the keyboard as you nodded out. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/64 "2012-08-28T06:37:31Z")
[quote=“Chef\_Troy, post:58, topic:632798”] However, NONE of my family know, and none of them ever will unless: [ul][li]Mrs. Chef dies before I do;[/li][li]I somehow manage to love again;[/li][li]The person I fall in love with happens to be a man; and[/li][li]That man is insane enough to want to hang out with my family.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE] That second bullet made me sad until I realized it was a sequence of events, not separate conditions. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/65 "2012-08-28T07:07:49Z")
Do I seem like the kind of poster who would blab some stupidly intimate detail all over the boards? Geez, I’m honestly insulted :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/66 "2012-08-28T08:09:30Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Your secret is most definitely safe with me. > > It looks like you fell asleep with your head in your hands and your elbow slowly slid across the keyboard as you nodded out. [Anon.penet.fi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penet_remailer) ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/67 "2012-08-28T11:05:20Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Melanoma? The kind of skin cancer you get from excessive exposure to the sun? Yeah, I have pretty poor taste, but I will not go _there_ … My understanding is that unlike basal and squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma can start anywhere on your body, not just the areas exposed to the sun. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/68 "2012-08-28T13:32:56Z")
[quote=“Chef\_Troy, post:58, topic:632798”] For years, nobody who knew me IRL knew that I’m bisexual – not even my wife (whom I have known since I was twelve). I was able to tell you weirdos, though - I even started a thread about it back in 2000 called [Ask the Closeted Bisexual Guy!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=23013). This led to occasional awkwardness when my wife accompanied me to Doper get-togethers - it was uncomfortable to be around people who !KNEW! when she didn’t (it didn’t occur to me that I might start hanging out with Dopers - everybody knows that people you meet online are imaginary). Eventually I was able to muster up the courage to tell her, and it went better than I could have hoped. Since then, I’ve come out to several of my IRL friends, none of whom has cared. However, NONE of my family know, and none of them ever will unless: [ul][li]Mrs. Chef dies before I do;[/li][li]I somehow manage to love again;[/li][li]The person I fall in love with happens to be a man; and[/li][li]That man is insane enough to want to hang out with my family.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE] How did you evetually come out to her and what happened? ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/69 "2012-08-28T13:49:44Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > You are Leaffan. If you were to post some secret, say you killed cats for fun or something, that would change how people view and interact with the poster “Leaffan”. If there was a proper anonymous forum on here, you could post about killing cats for fun and it would have no effect on the rest of your SDMB experience. So, in the context of the SDMB you are not anonymous. (And in the context of real life, your anonymity depends on how much of your real life you share. Anyone who already knows me in real life, and who stumbled across my posts on this board, would be able to figure out who I am.) Pretty much this. Hence I am not telling either, and I don’t really have any “bad” secrets. ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/70 "2012-08-28T13:57:04Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > How did you evetually come out to her and what happened? The story is on the last page of the thread I linked to, but the short version is that after an unrelated crisis, the insulation was temporarily stripped off our emotional wiring, and I realized that I just had to jump over my fear and land where I landed. I told her, she waited for the punchline, she asked a lot of questions (some of which I had the answers to), and she took a couple of days to process it. The biggest problem she had was the fact that, even though we’ve known each oher literally since we were kids, I didn’t feel I could tell her before. She had a point - marrying someone without telling them something so fundamental was not cool of me. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/71 "2012-08-28T13:59:55Z")
I’m an A-list actor in Hollywood. Oh, you want secrets that also happen to be true. Humph. ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/72 "2012-08-28T14:00:54Z")
I have a couple that I’ve never told anyone (only two other people in the world know, and I haven’t seen or corresponded with either of them since the night in question, nearly 30 years ago), and unless we’re allowed socks, I won’t be telling them here, for the reasons **RP** explained. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/73 "2012-08-28T14:09:33Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > OK. Who am I? You’re the guy who owns the shower we all pee in. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/74 "2012-08-28T14:22:29Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > You’re the guy who owns the shower we all pee in. I thought he was the dude who showers in the urinal… ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/75 "2012-08-28T14:25:34Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > I’m really just a wannabe. We all thought you were a devote. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/76 "2012-08-28T14:35:34Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > My wife’s family drives me crazy. “I told your sister about your father’s problem, but don’t tell him that I told her, because he wanted to keep it a secret, so please keep it secret that you know this. And don’t mention to your sister that I told you that she knows, because it would hurt her feelings because I promised to keep it secret that she knows this secret.” > > You know what I do when I want to keep a secret? Don’t tell anyone. That’s like my family. Keeping track of who knows what and who knows who knows what is damn near impossible. I am the only one on good terms with everyone. I have three rules for dealing with the fam. - don’t get in the middle of any dispute. - don’t give an opinion unless directly asked. If asked, tell the truth. - regarding anything in my life, either everyone knows or no one knows. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/77 "2012-08-28T16:26:36Z")
I have revealed things on here about my general past and experiences (though not in too much detail) that I wouldn’t tell people not in the know IRL, as it has operated as an emotional safety valve for me . But there are two Dopers who I know IRL before I became a Doper. There is also a Doper who posts on here regulary, who knows WHO I am IRL, but doesn’t actually know me. (Though I have met him). But as he and his friends are, putting it mildly, hostile to what I represent, I am more restrained in what personal information I post now. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/78 "2012-08-28T19:21:55Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > OK. Who am I? Specifically you? I’ve no clue. But in general terms many of us put enough info out to be easily identified by someone who makes an effort, even if we don’t reveal our names. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/79 "2012-08-28T19:27:18Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > OK. Who am I? Wait, I know this - you’re Spartacus, right? It’s not particularly a secret in my family, but SpouseO and I (and his sister and dad, now that I think about it) are hiding the fact that we’re both atheists from his mother. Largely because it’s just a discussion we don’t really want to have with her, and it really doesn’t affect our lives in any way. But it would affect hers - she’d be all up in trying to “save” us, and then shit would get real. So it’s best for all of us to just ignore that little factoid. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798/80 "2012-08-28T19:36:00Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > A friend of mine died at 40 from anal cancer that started as a melanoma. I would guess he died of melanoma that spread, not anal cancer. ETA: I wonder if it was anal melanoma. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-secret-you-will-never-tell-anyone/632798.md?page=5)