Dan
Whoever made up that rhyme about how “secrets are no fun” had nothing interesting to share. The people in this post revealed secrets from their personal lives that they’ve never told anyone before.
It’s brave and strange and worth your time.
Someone on Reddit wanted some hot gossip, and instead got a slew of childhood stories and weird experiences. The question was simply: “What is a secret that you will never tell anyone?”
People made some burner accounts, and let the stories fly.
Here are the best answers to the question “What is a secret that you will never tell anyone?”:
1. What was really lost in that house fire.
“About a week before I graduated highschool my family had a massive house fire. We lived out in the country, and no one was home so by the time anyone noticed it was on fire it was way too far gone. 30 ft flames above the roof. We lost everything, but had insurance and no one got hurt.
Anyways, I was in a chemistry class at the time that around 70% of the grade centered around a lab notebook that was graded all at once at the end of the semester. You would do labs every week, and then do lab write ups in the notebook. I had been slacking off and was way behind on the assignment and would have had to pull a few all nighters just to turn something in.
The day after the fire I went into class and told my teacher that the notebook had went up in the fire and that I had no idea how I would ever turn the assignment in. He was extremely nice about it, told me not to worry and gave me 100% on the whole assignment. Just said that I had bigger things to worry about and was about to graduate and that he hoped my family was doing ok.
…well the notebook was in my car the whole time. Threw that bitch away and swore myself to secrecy.” –Steid55
2. Yes, there is a Santa Claus.
“One Christmas I was 9 years old and knew that Santa wasn’t real but for my 7 year old brother the fantasy was very much alive and good. We shared a room and my brother woke up on Christmas morning and looked confused that Santa had not eaten the Kit Kat that had been left out. He went quiet and I could see that he was working the facts through in his head, when he wasn’t looking I ate the Kit Kat and showed him the wrapper and claimed he imagined seeing the wrapper unopened.
This was 26 years ago and I have not told him in case he works out Santa is not real.” –10pencefredo
3. All’s Well That Ends Well
“When I was in high school a friend confided in me that they had problems with cutting. Showed me recent marks. We had a long talk.
I went to the counselor of the school and told them a couple days later. I was a teen. I struggled with the choice, but ultimately the fear of losing my friend won.
Long story short, they ended up in a mental facility for a month and came back, absolutely baffled as to who ratted him out. Decided it was probably a different friend.
Well. I married him. He still doesn’t know.” –UnrestrainedTrash
4. The dark side of serving.
“The real reason I was discharged from the army was because I was raped and wasn’t able to tough it out. I always just tell my bros that I hurt my head or something.” –Throwaway910200287
5. A bad trip.
“I was on mushrooms, the special kind, when my mother killed herself. I spent the night surrounded by the police in the hospital and it has always really fucked me up. I thought about creating a throwaway to make this post but fuck it.” –avalanchefan95
6. A big score.
“About 20 years ago I worked for a big publisher. They were upgrading all their tech and just dumping it in a skip. I asked a security guy if I could take some stuff from the skip and he said to help myself as it was all going to get crushed anyway.
During a night shift I filled up my car with of beige G3/Quadra Apple Macs, keyboards, mice and some 19” Formac screens. Some of the macs had Quark Express and Photoshop on them.
I cleaned them up and sold the lot. I made enough to buy a G4 Quicksilver of my own which I still have today. I didn’t tell my co-workers, ex-wife, managers or anyone else.” –Sean_696
7. Cars are pricey even when they’re free.
“My mom left me to be homeless while still in high school to move out of state with an abusive (to me) new husband. When I finally got back in touch with them three years later, they gifted me one of his prized possessions, a car. It was kind of an olive branch? Problem was as a barely 20 year old with a minimum wage job living in DC, I couldn’t afford to plate it, inspect it, insurance gas or taxes on it- nothing.
Still full of hatred for this man and therefore somewhat out of spite.. I sold it to a coworker friend whose big family desperately needed it for probably 10% of what it was worth. Told my step dad and mother that I got in an accident and it cost $400 to tow and my insurance only covered blah blah… it’s been 11 years.” –leaky_orifice
8. Not healthy, but I understand.
“My first job in highschool, I had been there for a couple years, some new kid came in and told a bunch of lies to the owner about stuff I had “done at work”. I wasn’t questioned just let go immediately.
On the kid’s next shift my best friend and I went and placed large nails up against all of his tires so when he drove forward they would go right into his tires. I hear he had to replace all four. That was 20 years ago and I still side eye when I see him around town.” –Que_sax23
9. Who would do this?? I would.
“When I was 9, my dad and I were reading Reader’s Digest and found a magazine subscription card for a free case of Depends adult diapers, so we wrote my uncle’s name and address down and put it in the mailbox.
He got it a couple weeks later and called everyone in the family to find out who it was. We knew my uncle was fuming, so we kept it to ourselves. To this day, everyone suspects that it was my other uncle.” –1BoiledCabbage
10. This is rough.
“Throwaway because there’s no chance of me ever saying this in person. As a kid I grew up in a small country community of 3000 people, where I went to school etc.
I had a crush on a girl who was 2 years older than me all the way through high school, and when I was 16 I found out she was my half sister as my dad had cheated on my mum. This only came out when she turned 18 and found out who her dad was, prior to that no one knew and my dad and her mum had kept it a secret for 18 years. Completely fucked with me for quite a while that I’d had a crush on my half sister for a number of years.” –letsplaysquash
11. Our little secret.
“As a teen I stayed the night at my best friend’s house and slept in their guest room. I was woken about 2am to the sound of her older brother arriving home intoxicated from a party. He saw me in the guest room and leaned against the doorway to say hi. He then stumbled down the hallway to his bedroom but never turned the hallway light off, and it made it difficult for me to get back to sleep.
So after about ten to fifteen minutes I got up and walked down the end of the hallway to the lightswitch. I turned it off, and started walking back to my room when I briefly glanced into his bedroom as I walked past. His door was wide open and he was sitting at his computer with his back facing me. He was naked from the waist down, masturbating to what looked like transgender porn (can’t be certain, but it looked like someone in heavy make-up, long hair and with a penis).
I must have made a noise because he swung around, saw me staring and said “oh shit” then I immediately and swiftly returned to bed and lay in the dark not able to get the image out of my mind.
Five minutes later I heard him creeping down the hallway. I was like “oh God, here we go”…
He looked so sheepish and uncomfortable. He stood in the doorway and apologised for what I’d seen and begged me not to tell my friend, his little sister.
I swore I’d never tell them and told him it’s fine and to go back to bed.
To this day they wonder why he hasn’t got a girlfriend and they think perhaps he has a crush on me because he “acts weird” around me!” –Cat_Lady_Not_Crazy
12. Stick it to the man.
“I worked as a medical assistant in the early 90’s. Right out of school, at my first job, the doctor was a screamer who would yell at us in front of patients, call us names, make us work during our breaks, etc. But the worst thing he did was make us work overtime at the regular hourly rate ($6 an hour then) So one day I told the office manager (who was also the doctor’s wife) that someone had called from the state wage board and said they were investigating a complaint from a former worker about non payment of overtime.
The mandatory overtime stopped and if we did have any, it was paid at the time and a half rate. Bonus- I got to hear the doctor and wife bitch and curse about it and wonder which ex employee did it. There was a lot of turnover so that was fun.” –bahnknee67
13. A sweet one.
“This is not that good, I spent most Saturdays with my grandma and we would watch the same vhs of moonstruck every week. I never told her how much I hated that movie(its a good movie but not when you’re 8.). We would watch it and then after we would eat ice cream and put on SNL. Opera man era, I would give anything to watch moonstruck again with my grandma.” –Rafathedog
14. We’ve all been there.
“I used to work in a shopping centre. One time as I was walking in to the building I sneezed and totally shit myself, I was about 10 steps away from the shop so I had to think fast. I took a hard left turn and walked direct in to a department store. I only had $5 on me so I beelined for the underpants section and got the cheapest pair I could find. I then had to go to the centre toilets and sort everything out, it was a real mess.
I text my boss and told them I was stuck in traffic but in reality I was 100 metres away trying to salvage any shred of dignity I could for the next 20 minutes. I’m happy to say the mission was a success and that day is now the benchmark by which all other days are measured. Every day since has been infinitely better.” –Jlandyj
15. Who would miss one to one hundred Cokes?
“When I was in elementary school, I once lost something so I asked to go to the lost and found. In the lost and found room, which was a big storage closet, they also stored the cokes for the pop machines. I took one. Then, probably 3-4 times a week, I’d “remember” I lost something else and go steal another coke. I don’t know how long I did this for, but I got a lot of free coke.” –Nowforscd
16. Resilient pets!
“Probably 15 years ago my sister had a gerbil and one day I decided to bring it out of her cage and surprise her in the living room with it. Somehow I slipped on carpet and the gerbil went flying headfirst into the wall, it basically sounded like a threw a golfball at the wall and the gerbil wasn’t moving.
Naturally I put it back in its cage and removed myself from the vicinity. To my amazement the damn thing was still alive and moving around a few minutes later and lived another 2 years without anyone ever knowing that I basically kobe’d it into the wall at full speed.” –Techn028
17. Fun stuff right here.
“My dad was single and a couple of my friends’ moms were always bringing us food. My dad would say they were just being nice cause he was a single guy raising 3 kids by himself. My aunt picked me up from school sick and we head home. She must have known what was up and had me wait in the car.
Both of my friends moms came out half dressed and shit with my aunt yelling at my dad. I never did tell out of fear. 1 mom was divorced but 1 wasn’t and I was afraid of tearing their family apart. Will take it to my grave.” –Usual_Ear_2764
18. Bathroom policy.
“2 days in a row when I was in the second grade I pissed My pants, because the teacher had this policy where she wouldn’t let any student go to the bathroom even during free time in class. The third time I spent a solid 10 minutes begging her before she finally said fine, I pissed My pants on the way to the bathroom. My family only knows of the one time but I had to deal with that humiliation two times before and it was within the first week at school.
After that I had a water bottle that I pissed in during her class for the remainder of the year. I don’t know what she was expecting if somebody who just moved in with zero friends would be doing in the bathroom. But honestly if I would have the opportunity to go back in time I would rather tell my own self to piss on her desk because that would have been less humiliating than pissing my pants 3 days in a row.” –Sea_Ear_6224
19. Sex Ed.
“When I was about 8 or 9 the girl next door who was about 1-2 years older than me would always take me upstairs to teach me about sex education.
She once convinced me to be naked with her in bed. Obviously nothing happened because were young, and I wasn’t old enough to understand or have feelings of that nature, but she was lying on top of me! I remember thinking it was weird.
I remember she would regularly wave to me from her bedroom window whilst I was in my bedroom. She’s be on her windowsill naked. I was oblivious.” –4la5tair
20. The villain who gets away with it.
“During my freshman year in high-school I was drinking a red Gatorade at lunch. This girl said that I was sitting in her seat. I hurried and swiped my drink to find another seat. I didnt realize my Gatorade lid wasn’t tightened and the drink basically splashed all over her white pants. I scurried off pretending I basically just didn’t fuck up this girls pants with RED GATORADE..
A few weeks later my friend invited me over to play some league at his house. His sister came home and I realized that was the girl I spilled my drink on. On God I was shtting my pants at that very moment. But luckily she seemed to have not remembered my face because she did not mention it. My friend and I still talk to this day (I’ve graduated high school 9 years ago) and I have never told this to him or his sister. I sometimes feel like she pretends to not remember and is actually plotting something all these years.” –hiyoj
21. Finally had to tell someone.
“When I was 4 years old I had hernia surgery.
I wasn’t supposed to go downstairs during recovery, but I snuck downstairs to find my toy toolbox and brought it upstairs to play in bed.
I have never told my parents.” –GuyWhoRedsDit
22. What’s in a name?
“I didn’t know my best friend’s name for almost 10 years.
She goes by Katie almost exclusively and got it in my head early on that it was short for Katelyn…imagine my surprise when I heard her being referred to as ‘Kathryn’ at our convocation
No right way to bring that one up in a conversation.” –quetsche_coatl
23. Who among us hasn’t done this?
“When I was about 7 years old my dad took me to blockbuster and I really had to pee. Blockbuster didn’t have a restroom so I peed in one of the aisles. I’m pretty sure the cameras saw me but thankfully there was no one near me.” –Opti-Free31
24. This secret finally was revealed.
“Around 10 years ago, when I was a teenager, my dad (who worked in the video game industry back then) got a gaming laptop (worth around 3k that time) as a gift he didn’t have a real use for, so he gave it to me as I used to play WoW back then. He was very adamant about telling me to NOT put liquids (i. e. drinks etc) on my desk next to it as I’m very clumsy. So one night, I made myself a huge ass bowl of cornflakes, and put the bowl next to the laptop because I forgot my spoon in the kitchen.
I sometimes put a blanket over myself when I was gaming and when I got up from the chair that night, I somehow managed to flip the bowl over with my blanket and the milk FLOODED the open laptop. I got incredibly scared, turned the laptop off and cleaned it like my life depended on it and went to bed. I obviously broke the laptop as I didn’t get it to turn on anymore, but I was too scared to tell my dad what happened (especially since he repeatedly told me to be careful) and told him how I didn’t have any idea what happened and how it worked perfectly fine on the night before. I still feel incredibly bad about it
UPDATE – I told my dad. And although I can’t believe it, as so many of you said that he most likely knew – I got away with murder! He honestly didn’t know. He wasn’t angry at all, laughed it off and is really impressed with the amount of likes I got and how so many people are invested into this lmao! On a different note, I’m really happy I’ve told this story here as it ended up with me telling him and apologizing for my mistake. Feels really good!” –Yvacia
25. A secret many are holding onto.
“I really don’t like/care for anyone in my family.” –UnPlainJane23
h/t Reddit: r/AskReddit