Nobody Needs to Know This

People would be half as interesting if we knew everything about them. Why does Björn never mention his mother? Where does Annika disappear to every Wednesday evening without telling anyone? And why does Peter absolutely lose it whenever someone says the word "flashlight" and storms out of the room in a fury? Questions like these get met with a guilty head-shake and a sudden change of subject. Nice weather lately.

So we construct our own explanations. Maybe Björn’s mother gave him up for adoption two days after he was born. Maybe Annika is quietly apprenticing in the world’s oldest profession, Wednesdays being the introductory session. And Peter’s older brothers probably beat the hell out of him with flashlights when he was small. That’s definitely it.

Secrets can be as deep as the Mariana Trench—the kind that, when they finally surface, make you look at someone you love in an entirely different light, turn affection into something closer to bewilderment. Or they can be as shallow as a puddle, and all that detective work gets you nothing worth knowing. You do a cooking class on Wednesdays? Riveting.

Big or small, what they’re really doing is protecting something. From other people. From yourself. I’ll confess a few of mine: I bite chunks off bananas and drop them into my muesli instead of using a knife, like an animal. At every unfamiliar toilet I arrange paper on the seat because I’m convinced public surfaces are designing my death, while at home I’m actively cultivating a new civilization of bacteria in the kitchen sink. And there was the time Julia called and I let it go to voicemail because she hadn’t shaved her legs the last time we slept together and I just wasn’t ready for that conversation, so I watched Hannah Montana instead. So. What are yours?