I often wonder about people who do things they need to keep secret or hidden from others. I can see the need when someone is planning a surprise of one kind or another. Beyond those situations, if you need to hide it, then you are ashamed, embarrassed, feel what you are doing is unacceptable to one or several others in your life, in simplistic terms, WRONG. I wonder if the secretive nature of it all is what the individuals participating in said activities find exciting. The belief that getting away with something you should not be doing is a cheap thrill of sorts, many people are positively addicted to the feeling obtained when they do something they think no one is aware of or that they will not get caught for doing. One often hears of financially well-off individuals that commit petit larceny for the adrenalin rush they get from doing it. I think this is a similar feeling some get when they flirt online and in public. It gets them a "rush" and they become so ensconced in performing this action, they seemingly forget they are doing it at all. It often becomes a part of how they interact with others in person and online in social situations. They even keep separate secret email addresses to have the missives sent to and from, of course, thinking no one is aware that such activity is present, yet alone exists.
The truth is, most of the time the astute observer knows something covert is occurring. Of course when the finger is pointed, often the reply is "this is not what it looks like, we are just long time friends!" My reply would be, well friends do not sneak around and keep their verbal activities stealth and behind locked doors, so to speak. True there are some genuinely overly jealous individuals in this world that misinterpret and see things that really are not as they seem. In such situations, I can truly understand the reason a person might keep a friendship on the down-low, but when one is a reasonable person, the hidden actions become suspect to being the kind of activity that can demolish a relationship and the trust it is built upon.Trust is a very important facet in every relationship we have, be it friend, lover, husband, wife, even employer/employee. It is something that takes time to build, and builds in layers until a sufficient quantity builds and one feels comfortable with the person and can let some of their guard down.Once trust becomes eroded or disregarded, it is most difficult to rebuild. It is certainly not impossible, but it is a tough thing to rebuild in any case.
When two people in such activities deny and make excuses for what they are doing, the biggest fool is the people themselves. I pride myself on my being a reasonable person, and being forthright and open when I deal with friends and others I am in a relationship with. I do not promise things I cannot deliver, I try not to be a pest or judgmental, and most always attempt to put myself in their shoes, though sometimes this is nearly impossible to perform.There are many situations one can never imagine, and we all feel things to different degrees. Some cannot abide any kind of distress,where others are like triathletes, conditioned to take on several events without untoward results for them personally. Some of us tolerate too much, others much too little. Most of the time I find myself in the over-tolerance category, forgiving too easily, looking past bad habits or instances and just plain becoming a sort of "welcome mat", in an UN-welcome way of course! Our different reaction/actions make life interesting, and keep things from being too formulated and contrived.I don't consider myself to be a martyr, but sometimes I am aware I border dangerously close to it in some situations. I do my level best to not judge others for the past performances of others that have been in my life, but similarities in situations do tend to set the radar on in some cases.
To sum it all up, one should never be so certain that the activities they think are stealth, hidden, covert or whatever you want to name it, truly are any of those things. Most of the time the person that is targeted to be excluded is often acutely aware of the situation at hand, they just choose, for whatever reason, to just observe, tolerate and see to what extent they can let things accumulate. We all have different boiling points, and that is what can make the situation either boil over, or sit on the back burner, slowly cooking, waiting for the pot to boil dry. What eventually ensues depends on all the parties involved, not just those behaving as double agents in their lives.
