I am a recently separated sixty year old male with a sixteen year old daughter who lives partly with me and partly with her mother. I have dipped my toes in the dating scene and found things going swimmingly until I mention my daughter and then suddenly found that things have gone frosty.
It was my husband, telling me our 20-year-old son had driven his car through a neighbour’s brick fence. He was unhurt. There was structural damage to the house. He had a blood alcohol level of 0.11.
It’s human to have a secret, but it’s just as human to reveal it sooner or later.
― Philip Roth
And maybe it is. But not all writers are secret-sharers. I know writers who are keen observers of humankind but prefer to remain unobserved themselves. I admire them but can’t emulate them. Such people do well not to let me into their secrets. For while I’m a great sharer of my own, I’m a reluctant holder of others’.
