Ask e Me No Questions, I'll Tell You No Lies

Secrets are a big part of everyone's life. Everyone has a secret they have, and for the most part, its difficult to keep it that way. When I was younger, I was a bit of a compulsive liar, nothing big, mind you, but about little things. On the off chance that I would have done something that I shouldn't have, I got pretty good at covering up my little white lies, so when my friend called me and told me to lie to her parents, I felt confident that I could pull it off.

My friend Jane Doe called me one afternoon and told me that she had woken up in some stranger's house after a rough night of partying and had the worst hangover of life. She was supposed to be at her parent's house by 9 am, but when she called me, it was almost 2 pm. I knew her parents well enough to know that they had been very worried and would be disappointed in her. I knew she would do it for me in a heart beat, so I agreed, even though I felt that she shouldn't have involved me if she insisted on lying.

I was surprised by how conflicted I felt. On one hand, I felt pretty bad when I would tell her parents that Jane had stayed with me that night. I didn't expect that to be the case. I guess it was because in the same situation, I would have told my parents as much of the truth as I could although I would never tell them the entire truth. It was uncomfortable, but I knew that her parents would be more comfortable with the the truth that Jane had created, and the real events would worry them more and cause them to be disappointed in her, and she couldn't take that.

On the other hand, I had this secret that I was itching to tell. I had known Jane since high school, and all of our old friends would be shocked at how much she had changed. It was juicy gossip and I had to try really hard not to break. I felt like I held this power over Jane and over my other friends. But I know that I won't tell them, because after all, if they gossip to you, they'll gossip about you, and I don't want that.

Lost in Translation

Everyday, words are used to convey messages to people and these words, when used in the proper order and and context, give meaning. Sometimes though, people make intellectual mistakes, through ignorance or by the simple reason of using the wrong word. I myself seem to have these moments more often than I should, if I were to be honest with myself. I can't seem to process the words I want to speak with the words that I actually speak. Most of the time, I just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, without filtering the words and sometimes without even trying to be politically correct, and most commonly, without even realizing that I haven't explained myself all that well.

One of these moments happened to me last week. I was hanging out with some of my friends, one of which happens to be gay. I can't exactly remember what the conversation was about, but I remember saying something to the effect of Conan O'Brien joining Twitter, and how surprised I was that he gained over 100,000 followers in the first three days since he first joined in comparison to Craig Ferguson, the host of the Late Late Show on CBS, who has been on Twitter for about three weeks and only has about 120,000 followers. I assumed that I had said that I was impressed with how popular Conan was and how people were still rallying behind him, even though he's not on tv anymore. Apparently, my friends were convinced that I had said that Craig was more popular, even though he clearly isn't (although he is my favorite) and that I was bashing Conan or something. I guess that I wasn't able to explain myself properly and that caused my friends to misunderstand me.

Another way I have made an intellectual mistake when I have tried to communicate is through the differences in dialect. I was with one of friends from El Salvador and with Spanish, there are many words that have different meaning in different countries. One of these words is fresa. Fresa in Spanish, means strawberry, but the slang meaning differs a great deal. In Mexico, fresa is used to describe a preppy, often daft and silly girl, but in El Salvador, fresa is like fairy, a negative term that is used in reference to gay men. I said that even though my cousin was a fresa, she wasn't that bad. My friend, who happens to be gay, took offense to that and I couldn't understand why. Luckily, one of my friends happened to have lived in Mexico City for a couple of years and understood what I meant and explained. It's amazing how one word can create so much conflict and confusion. That one word changed the entire meaning of what I was trying to say and this can create a lot of trouble in situations that can be more serious than the one I experienced.

Thes experiences that I had, although not very significant, shows that misunderstandings can happen between people of the same age, socioeconomic group and educational quality, and can obviously happen across different generations, cultures and nations, and continents. Although people may understand the words that people are saying, the meaning can get lost. Different people may not understand the context of the words and people can sometimes misuse words altogether, or forget to add words, or simply don't think things through, and this can create messages that are understood incorrectly and when this happens, conflicts may arise.