This Generation Lacks Privacy

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I already sound like your mother who has been telling you incessantly that you shouldn’t be posting risqué photos online because once you hit eighteen and decide to hit the work force; your boss will look online for any disturbing pictures in order to find reasons why he should not hire you. Although that is beyond true, there’s more to your privacy than just sharing your thoughts and photos on the Internet.

We live in a day and age where it becomes inherently wrong to not tell your best friend every miniscule detail about your life. This imaginary list of codes that girls have written in their head makes it impossible for anyone to have the slightest bit of privacy. You must tell your best friend where you are at any given moment. She has to be the first one to know whom you’re hooking up with. She has to know if you’ve had sex yet or why you decided to wait with your boyfriend and not be intimate.

There’s no doubt in my mind that you must be extremely close to your best friend and feel comfortable telling he or she anything, but there comes a point where there are needs to be some boundaries. Maybe you aren’t ready to tell your best friend that you have had sex or maybe you just want to keep things private between you and your boyfriend.

What I’m struggling to understand is the idea that we have to share every little detail of our lives in order to have an ideal friendship. Why must someone get shunned or belittled because they don’t want to share every little personal detail about their life? I am not saying that sharing is a bad idea; I’m merely stating that people shouldn’t have to share everything in order to have a best friend close to heart.

It becomes sad when you don’t want to share and are forced to lie to your friends. Eventually, secrets do come out and you lose anyone who ever meant something to you. Because if you were to tell your best friend you don’t feel like spilling every little secret, they become totally offended. And so, whether you lie or decide not to share, you’re risking your friendship.

Is it possible to gain some sense of that privacy to yourself? Are people ever capable of understanding that some things are too personal for your best friend to even know or are we always going to be obligated to spill every little detail?

Am I wrong for wanting a little bit of privacy?