Open the app to see what’s new. Check updates that have been posted on the secrets I’ve commented on first. Click through each of them. Go into the main feed, read down to where I last left off. Scroll back to the top, pull down to refresh. Head back to updates.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
That’s been my life over the past week, as Secret has become an all-consuming devourer of my time and attention. When I’m reading Secret I’m ignoring everyone and everything else around.
When I’m not reading Secret, I’m thinking about Secret.
I’m pretty sure this is how an addict feels, and I’m becoming increasingly concerned that if I don’t stop soon, my abuse of this app will have dire circumstances for my work and social life.
Maybe I’ll open up too much, let slip something really damning in a moment of weakness, and someone will find me out. Maybe my friends will realize that I’m the one trolling them and they’ll cease to be my friends. Maybe people will just get tired of me ignoring them, while I scan for new secrets over and over again. Maybe I’ll miss an important deadline because I was neck deep in my friends’ gossip.
It’s not even the gossip that gets me, not the mean-spiritedness or the trolling or the braggadocio, not the impossible lies or the regrettable truths.
It’s relating to other human beings in this weird, anonymous state where we’re stripped of all the trappings society defines us by. It’s being just another voice in the darkness, seeking to be heard for who we really are.