Secrets...Are Fun

Why Everyone is Confessing on the Internet

By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

Confession sites on the Internet have been experiencing a huge boom in popularity! It seems like everyone wants to anonymously confess their sins to everyone who will listen. And so many people actually want to listen! I have so many friends that could spend hours sitting online reading other people's confessions. What is with this new trend of spilling your secrets?

Sincerely,

I'm Not Telling

Dear I'm Not Telling,

The secret behind secrets is one word....control. Secrets, or keeping something from others, is a form of control. Confessing, is also a form of control, although it may not seem like it at first glance. Controlling what and when someone reveals a secret, as a confession, and to whom, is control.

Confession on the internet -- is a new form of confession because many people confess their secrets, while masquerading as other personalities. Therefore, it's not a pure confession, it's a derivation of a confession.

In fact, before even confession, many people float confession trial balloons, where they anonymously, or masquerading as someone else, confess behavior they never actually exhibited, to see what the reaction to that behavior would be. Based on their experience of confession and reaction, they may actually behave in the way they already confessed that they had, or they may not. So confessing in this way can actually prevent certain behaviors.

Becoming the audience or the absolver to a confessor also takes a new turn because of the internet. As a relationship expert with a website and a large following, I receive hundreds and thousands of letters and e-mails from people who want to confess and be absolved, or told what to do. And more than that, are the readers I have who actually comment and offer their own absolution or validation of a confessor's behavior that is posted on the website through their letters and my advice columns.

While this may seem strange, it's not. In ancient Greek drama there is always an antagonist, a protagonist and a chorus. The modern audience who wants to read or listen to internet confessions is the modern day Greek chorus.

April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.

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