It’s called integrity, babe.

It fascinates me how quickly and easily people sell each other out; how easy it is to open your mouth and tell everyone who will listen the things you’re not supposed to tell anyone.

Unfortunately, I’m no exception. I’ve had some moments I’m less than proud of but I’m the first one to admit when I’ve made a mistake. But I’m also quick to notice when someone else has too.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t have too many close girlfriends. I guess you could say this is at least partially due to my own choosing because I would rather have a small group of people I trust than a large group of people who would gladly sell out their friends to tell a good story. But I feel like I’m too quick to assume that new girl friends are as trustworthy as the ones I’ve spent weeks, months, and years building strong relationships with. And in situations like this, I don’t really know where the expectation of trust comes in. I don’t know how long is long enough for some secrets to be implicitly kept secret. 

I recently made the mistake of telling someone I’d only spent a brief amount of time with, something that I should have known to keep to myself. As soon as the words came out, I knew it was a mistake. Although it wasn’t just a hearsay rumour, I knew it wasn’t my story to tell. To be honest, it didn’t occur to me that the person I told would immediately rat me out.

But hey, lesson learned, right?

I don’t do truly stupid things very often. As far as girls my age go, I don’t have too many regrets, but telling something I knew wasn’t mine to tell weighs pretty heavily on my conscience. Taking full responsibility and apologizing for something I know I did wrong, with absolutely no excuse doesn’t feel very good. Actually, it feels incredibly shitty. 

There’s usually crying involved. There’s always crying involved.

But at some point you have to become at least some semblance of an adult and as a very wise girl once wrote, people just need to “stop making excuses for [them]sel[ves] and [their] behaviour. Own it, good or bad.“ 

I think your true colours shine in moments where you have no choice but to admit you’re just flat-out in the wrong.

While I’m not always the picture perfect pillar of honesty, I think I’ve encountered more than my fair share of shrewdly untrustworthy people. My dating history is basically a who’s who of undesirable, totally full-of-shit guys and unfortunately my friendships’ past aren’t a whole lot different. 

The girl I shared a bathroom with in my first year of university decided to become secret make-out buddies with a guy I was dating. A girl I practically hand-fed a really great starter career to stole a dress from me and never spoke to me again. A girl I didn’t even know [until she stalked me on Twitter and lied about her identity to befriend me] not only slept with my long-term university boyfriend while I was dating him, but actually stole a bunch of blog entries from me and proceeded to tell people that I was trying to steal her life.

I’ve terminated absolutely volatile friendships and acquaintanceships with people because the bad just outweighed the good, regardless of how or with what scale you measured it. I’ve reconnected with people I grew apart from only to find that the reasons were went separate ways no longer exist. 

Of course, some people change and everyone make mistakes. It’s just, despite all of my screw ups and all of my down falls, if there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s that I’ve got integrity.

I just don’t always exercise it when I should. [I’m working on it.]

Love you like a love song,