Tattle-Tale Tell All

When I was younger, there was a hierarchy among the children of the family. The oldest held the most power and the youngest was usually the scapegoat. For years, I was the youngest and I endured so much torture during that time (locked in closets, stuffed in boxes, left in ditches etc...). And before I understood the politics of the family (what happens among the kids stays among the kids), I was a......TATTLE-TALE!!!

The thing about me though was that if I decided to tell someone something, they got the WHOLE TRUTH. Otherwise, I was a half-truth teller and some may call that a liar. I just figured that if I was deciding to bring in an outside party into my affairs, they needed to know everything so that they could hand out judgment accordingly.
So a conversation might go like this:

Me-Just listen. I hit Cookie. Then she kicked me. So I hit her again. Then she threw a metal car at me and it hit me in my eye.
Adult-Stop trying to get people in trouble. Don't blame it all on Cookie. What did you do?
Me-(in my head)Didn't she just hear the story (out loud)I told you what I did. I hit her, but all she had to do was hit me back. She didn't have to kick me.

So after this exchange, the adults were free to take sides as they pleased.

That's still how I operate today. When people ask me questions that I'm not ready to share the answer to I'll do 3 things:

1. Change the subject [usually people bring it back to the question] 2. Say "I don't want to tell you now. Just wait" [People are impatient so they demand an answer] 3. Tell a half truth [I actually toned down on this part because people get a little upset with half truths, but on my defense I did try the first 2 steps and they kept prodding]

However when I make the decision that I'm going to reveal information to a person, I tell everything and I mean EVERYTHING. Including what I did. I usually start with what I did first. I'm not for creating "bad guys"...no not at all. People choose sides on their own and there have been plenty of instances when they don't choose my side especially because I'm not always innocent. That's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Basically, I'm tired of girls complaining about what boy did them wrong when they won't explain what they did to create the situation. And it annoys the heck out of me when boys play the victim of some female when he helped make the circumstance.[There may be very special instances where one party is totally 100% inculpable, but that is rare]

In the end, it's about taking responsibility and owning up to your mistakes. It's about meaning what you say. If you tell someone, "I forgive you"...forgive them. Don't hold the past over their head like anvil. The most important thing is to figure out WHY you did something if you don't want it to happen again. You can't fix behavior when you don't know why or where you learned it.

But if you aren't prepared to tell all...then STOP SNITCHING!!

Alexandny <3