Lex and the City: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Hello, Lexers. Happy Monday. We here at Lex and the City hear it was an eventful weekend for some and to that we say good job everyone. We would love more than anything to discuss the snow-covered elephant in the room, but we’re a relationship columnist and that is all that we do. Discuss relationships. So we’ll stick with the blowing we know and leave the rest to the proper authorities.

So it’s always awkward when you find yourself in a position in which you know something that others don’t know. Usually, people turn that awkwardness into power and wield it over people in the form of gossip. Still, every once in a while you stumble across something that isn’t funny srat lunch gossip but involves actual human emotion and feeling. And it was when I was sitting over iced coffee with a friend of mine that we stumbled over the age old question: if you know something that could potentially end a relationship, is it your obligation to tell? In relationships, when you’re in the know, do you tell or not? Is it better to be a teller or a keeper?

Now the fact of the matter is men and women always do things they shouldn’t when it comes to relationships. They lie, flirt with others, cheat and steal. Usually it’s between the two of them and the rest of us live our lives obliviously. But every once in a while, a third party gets involved and it’s important to know how you’re going to react when a buddy of yours is being cheated on (or pre-cheated on as the case may sometimes be); it’s like a fire drill, Lexers. Always be ready and you’ll make it out of the burning house alive. Not ready? Well, that’s a sad and different story.

Before you decide for yourself whether you are a teller or a keeper, it is crucial that you assess all of your friends’ relationships and decide to whom you owe your allegiance. For the most part, deciding which member of the couple you’re loyal to is a pretty easy task: family, friends, pledge classes, most recent hook ups and people who know secrets about you are at the top of the list. On the rare occasion that you’re friends with both parties in the relationship involved, however, it is more than necessary that you know who you will stick with in the event you have to take sides. It’s important to know this because it’s important to consider whose feelings and best interests are more paramount to you when you do stumble upon potentially hurtful information.

Once you know whose back you’ve got, so to speak, you can decide whether or not to be a teller or a keeper. Most people argue that it’s important to be a teller: wouldn’t you like to know if the situation was reversed? However, I’d like to assert that there is a time and place for both. I’d hazard to say that if the two people involved are probably not going to stay together forever anyway, you should stick with being a keeper. Keep that knowledge inside. For the most part, people are irrational, and no matter how dysfunctional the relationship appears from the outside in, they will always blame you for breaking them up if you are a hasty teller, so why even bother getting involved. Zip it up and call it a day.

If you do think the relationship is stable, then you’ll have to do a little bit more work in your decision making. If what you’ve heard or witnessed isn’t particularly dramatic, then why bother. Leave petty situations alone. However, if you’re talking about deal breaking news here, then yes, you might have to consider becoming a dreaded teller.

It’s also important to make certain that you are absolutely positive that what you’ve seen or heard is one hundred and ten percent true. No use stirring up relationship problems simply because you got a hunch or may have misunderstood something- that could just be gas and confusing that, my friend, is the fastest way to find yourself on the ex-friend list.

We spend so much time talking about putting relationships together that we forget to talk about what happens when they begin to fall apart. When a couple is on the rocks, it is the friends who are the first to notice because it is they who see things objectively. It is those of us on the outside looking in who know the things that could change people’s relationships and it is our responsibility to discern just what we’ll do with these observations. In no two cases is the decision similar and there is rarely a case where the decision is clear cut, tell or no. If I had to say one thing though, I’d say this: caution on the side of keeper, because at the end of the day you can always claim blind ignorance if shit hits the fan. If you’re a teller and things go awry, your only valid defense is tourettes and that requires a doctor’s note.