# Do you have a confidant? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 1, 2009, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-confidant/479459 "2009-01-01T10:38:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-confidant/479459/41 "2009-01-02T20:11:02Z")
No one. ---
**Author:** ![Taters](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/taters/32/2845_2.png) [@Taters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taters)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-confidant/479459/42 "2009-01-02T20:15:21Z")
No, not really. I mean, I tell my SO just about everything, but no one else. Like someone else mentioned earlier, I’ve been hurt a lot by people, so now I tend to keep people at arm’s length. Yes, I realize it’s not good for me, but it’s the way I am. So, I end up just keeping a lot of stuff bottled up inside of me. ---
**Author:** ![Zygomide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zygomide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zygomide)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-confidant/479459/43 "2009-01-02T20:19:30Z")
I don’t always tell my confidant everything, but I know I could. So I will often keep things bottled up, but if I feel the need to talk to her I can. Somehow that knowledge itself is comforting. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-confidant/479459/44 "2009-01-02T20:30:49Z")
I’ve never been close to my family and I haven’t had a best friend since 2001, and I think I’ve gotten used to it. Most things I feel the need to talk about now I tell my SO, but I don’t feel that I’m confiding in him (most of the time). If I want to talk about my SO I have one friend who I’d willingly go to, but it’s hard to get time with her when her husband and little boy (both of whom I love) aren’t around – and it’s so rare for me to get to see any of them these days that I’d hate to ask for just 1/3 of them. Plus I think it would hurt her husband’s feelings if I confided in her but not him, because he’s the one I was friends with first. But I know that if I really _needed_ to talk to her, I could – anytime. > [@Zygomide](#): > > Hijack: If someone is your confidant, are you their confidant? Not necessarily. Both my above-mentioned friend and her husband have best friends who are not me, and who they would confide in well before they talked to me. I think that I’m my SO’s only confidante, but he’s not a talker. I honestly don’t think that he talks about me to anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Neeps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a183cd/32.png) [@Neeps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neeps)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2009, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-confidant/479459/45 "2009-01-03T00:35:23Z")
I thought that I had one. I thought we had good conversations. Back and forth. She moaned to me about her job. I moaned to her about my (admittedly) many problems. We kept each other company via email whilst doing boring jobs. I had met her through a ‘good’ friend at work, who was her fiance. Apparently, though, I was just dumping things on her (despite the constant questions from her and overt interest in what was happening at the time). At least, this is according to her fiance. Not to go into the details, but there was a bit of a medical crisis (on my part) and that was when she/her partner decided that it was a good time to break off contact with me because of my general negativity. The fact that her negativity would have given me a run for my money is neither here nor there. I have since discovered who my real friends are, and she, sadly, is not one of them. It is amazing how some situations really clarify things like this. It makes me really sad, but I think that I was hoping that she was a better friend than she was. It turns out my real confidant was someone who had been there all along. I feel a bit stupid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-confidant/479459.md?page=2)