The Counterfeits in Confidants

Humans are pathetically communicative. We always need someone to talk to. If nobody is at our disposal, we talk to God. If we do not subscribe to the idea of Almighty, we assume that role and talk to ourselves. If perchance we bore ourselves to madness with our own company, we talk to figments of our imagination and inanimate objects. Now what do we do most when we talk? We confide. Perhaps letting someone know how we feel is as primal an urge as bloodlust and hunger. That is why we have confidants – people we pour our hearts out to. That is also how we set ourselves up for betrayal, some may say. However, too much yarn has already been spun about tales of broken faith. Loyalty has a purpose to preserve. Treachery has a purpose to hurt. Between these two clear, honest motives, lurks a subconscious trait of spontaneous opportunism that has no intention to make you either prevail or perish. People equipped with this feature act with no premeditated malice. They simply find a stake and need a card to play, so they play you. This piece is to commemorate such extraordinary forgeries of camaraderie.

Not all of us are kings or kingmakers who have secrets that can shake up the world. Not every invasion of privacy is a corporate act. We all have our feelings, dispositions, beliefs, and opinions that constitute who we are as a private person. When we make someone privy to this information, we often do it in good faith that it is meant for a certain set of eyes and ears. We are not talking about broadcasts on social media. We are referring to private conversations had with close, trusted people who themselves bare their hearts to us on countless occasions making us commit on our honour that “this stays strictly between us.” They demand extraordinary loyalty and discretion because their situations are always more fragile and complicated. When it comes to reciprocating this faith, there is often a sea of people around them who get to know what they know either by right, by obligation, or by providence.

Trust is a privilege. When someone confides in us, even if it is not meant to be a secret, it is confidential by default. It is bestowed privacy. Somebody has entrusted us with a fragment of their life that was never ours to own. The responsibility is not just to avoid spilling it publicly; it is also never to make it ‘useful.’ Counterfeit confidants entertain a different perspective. They view shared emotions as lose change accidentally found under a couch that is more suited for buying candy than safekeeping. Some spend it to buy themselves a cloak of transparency. They are the ones who proudly proclaim, “I am an open book for anyone to read.” Their biggest problem is mistaking indiscretion for honesty. Revealing someone else’s private thoughts as evidence of your openness is like stripping someone else publicly to say you have no shame. The only true disclosure such ‘open-book people’ ever make is their inability to honour trust. Their only takeaway from repeat performances is progressive isolation.

Then there are those who barter trust. One secret buys off another. Making someone vulnerable opens other doors of confidence that are more rewarding or desirable. Those who build someone’s trust by wrecking someone else’s faith often end up with just two piles of rubble. Amongst these are a subspecies of self-assumed, morally correct spouses and partners. They hallucinate that if they disclose everything shared by friends, relatives or colleagues, their partner will feel obliged to reciprocate with equal transparency. It is a foolishly optimistic business model usually employed by people who, pardon me, have little trust between themselves. It almost never works. The partner who is determined to keep secrets simply continues to do so and may even get more creative in such endeavours. There is often little to gain except losing a credulous person who had nothing to do with making or breaking that relationship anyway.

Unfortunately, there is no way of distinguishing counterfeit confidants from genuine ones except to trust people, allow them the benefit of the doubt, pay attention to painful patterns, and stop making the same mistakes endlessly. The irony is, often such people are not inherently bad or deceitful. Some may be so dear that you feel like being a fool all your life. However, love and devotion can make you kneel. They can make you bow. They should never make you hang your head in shame. It is important to know when to let go, and it never has to be the end of a relationship. Trust may not necessarily terminate with a loud showdown. Often, it simply thaws, melts, and evaporates. One fine day you find yourself editing your sentences with someone who once knew everything about you. Conversations become notes in shorthand. Laughter turns hollow. The connect survives, but the connection is no more. It really hurts.

It may take a moment of self-reflection; or it may take losing the trust of a person who was worth more than all your conviction in life put together; but bruising someone’s trust often comes with a hefty payback of remorse. However, in the complex world of relationships, being a counterfeit or a genuine confidant can be a habit, a passing phase, or a one-time folly. There are no absolute yardsticks to measure human character consistently. I like to believe that ‘confidant’ is a common noun – a role, not the defining identity of a particular person. If merely taking away that role keeps an otherwise lovely relationship intact, I would choose to be less confiding, but still together. In addition, there is always hope. Fortunately, unlike money, people do not have fixed denominations. Losing face value or increasing their worth is always an option.