Privacy Among Friends: An Introvert Reflects
Some thoughts on the confidentiality consciousness that many introverts uphold as a habit and a value.
When a friend explicitly confides in me with “Don’t tell anyone…” or “This is just between you and me,” I keep their information to myself. Scrupulously. The same goes for personal information not prefaced with such a caution but that seems liable to wreck a relationship if disclosed. Likewise, if a friend tells me there’s something they’d rather not talk about, I back off.
This all feels as much like an instinct as a matter of principle. I hate it when others broadcast gossip about me, so I honor friends by zipping up their secrets within me and respecting their boundaries.
Indeed, I may be far more sensitive about secrets and disclosure than the average person. I attribute that to my introvert personality. In college I exploded in fury at an acquaintance who read a private notebook in which I wrote about personal matters. She then had the nerve to write comments there in response! And in recent years I mentally blacklisted neighbors who blabbed about me to others seemingly to feel more important themselves.
Introverts often “lash out at those who encroach upon or malign their personal comfort zones,” says Laurie Helgoe, author of Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength. Blogger and author Michaela Chung exaggerates just a tad in her description of introverts’ privacy concerns: “I know introverts who are so secretive they might as well walk around with a big red CONFIDENTIAL sign stamped to their forehead.”
Confidentiality consciousness has to do with protecting our personal space, the sacred innerness that we introverts consider our primary identity. Whereas extroverts feel validated mainly through social interaction, introverts tend to regard our solitary, contemplative self as our existential touchstone. Both positive and negative information about us belongs properly to us and those few we trust, we feel, rather than to observers, gossipers, the public at large or people we know but don’t care much about. This is a far, far cry from the “Privacy is dead, get over it” attitude and far from obsessive sharers who post every detail of their daily life on social media.
We introverts then extend our protectiveness to those we most love and respect. On their behalf, we try to shield them from embarrassment, intrusion and casual judgments because of facts or rumors. Ironically, the friends may not care the way we would. I’ve had experiences where I wrote about friends, showed them the essays or chapters and asked “Do you mind?” One replied “Why would I mind?” and another said “Of course I don’t mind – it’s all true.”
In an Introvert UpThink post about movie star Greta Garbo, I described Garbo’s vehement reaction when housekeepers whom she had trusted spoke to the press or published tell-all stories about her. Whenever biographer Robert Gottlieb recounted one of these episodes, he put the word “betrayal” in quotes to indicate his ridicule for Garbo’s hurt feelings of associates being treacherous to her.
Would the dynamics around Garbo’s intimates’ revelations be somewhat or completely different if they’d said or written much the same after Garbo’s death? Does the introvert’s instinctual or moral duty of loyal safekeeping apply after a friend has died? I recently wrote about this dilemma in regard to a close friend. Read the essay and see what you think.