Lying/keeping quiet about very trivial things

[geekgirl4]

This isn't a huge deal to me, but it is one that left me somewhat confused so I was hoping to get different viewpoints on this.

 

A friend of mine applied to two grad schools with low expectations of getting in. Our group of friends are quite close and hang out nearly every day, so we all knew he applied and was waiting back for an answer. Well, it turns out he got the acceptance letter end of last month, and decided to let us all know a few days ago. I actually was one of the few people who knew early on (last week), but that was still a week later from the acceptance letter. And he asked me not to tell anybody O_o

 

A problem I had with this is that he is currently sharing a room with our other mutual friend, but is not on the lease because of the grad school situation. I thought it was pretty disrespectful to not let the roommate at least know the situation immediately so that the roomie could look for a new roommate to live with. Even if he hadn't reached a decision to go or not, I thought it was common courtesy to inform the roomie so they can make the preparations.

 

My basic question is, what's the reason for people to lie about rather trivial matters? None of our friends are ill willed, whether he decided to stay or go, we would definitely support him. But because he held back on the results, some of our group are harboring some confusion/resentment. He had talked about his concerns with grad school and how he was waiting on the results several times over the waiting period. What was the point in not revealing the results? Other than wishing congratulations and feeling a bit sad he's going to leave, we all agreed that we wouldn't have had any other feelings in terms of his acceptance, so why the need to hide it?

 

I guess it's one of those things where if he had revealed it, it wouldn't have been a big deal at all. But since he hid a matter that none of us would have had a bad reaction to, I guess some of us feel a bit hurt and it turned into a matter.

[alli]

I don't see where he lied. He didn't share his own information with his whole group of friends the instant it happened, but I don't see that as lying. I'm sure you don't tell your friends everything, such as when you had your last period or that your secret dream is to become a mail carrier (okay, this probably isn't true, but I'm just making the point that keeping private information private is not telling a lie).

 

So he has to move out now for grad school, my guess is in a month? Maybe 3 weeks? I don't think that is a completely unreasonable amount of time for his roommates to find a replacement. A lot of apartments that do not require yearly contracts require just a month's notice. At the same time, these guys he lives with should have anticipated this because they knew he had applied for grad school, and they also knew he was not tied to the lease. It would have been nice to have as much notice as possible, but this wasn't completely out of left field for them, either.

 

Who knows why he didn't tell you all right away. I know when I had applied for a college scholarship I didn't tell my sister right away when they called me for a phone interview, because I knew she would make me nervous & increase my chances of screwing up. I ended up doing well on the interview and told her afterward, and she was giving me "tips" like I hadn't done the interview yet, and she DID make me nervous. I probably would have screwed it up had I talked to her beforehand. Maybe your friend wanted to keep everyone out of his face while he decided what to do. But it doesn't matter, it's his business anyway.

[RedDress]

I agree with Alli. Your friend didn't lie. He simply chose not to share a piece of information. Maybe he was deciding whether or not he wanted to go!

 

I don't think he owed anyone that information. Including the roommate. He's entitled to think it over in peace (without the opinions of others) first. The roommate was well aware it was a possibility - which is why he is not on the lease.

[geekgirl4]

You guys give good points and are right. Usually acceptance letters are good things, I'm not sure why he didn't disclose that he got accepted. I guess I thought if good things happen, you'd want to share the news, instead of telling select friends to be quiet about it all.

 

It is understandable that it is his own business. But after hearing him talking to all our friends several times about his grad school hopes, doing the apps, waiting for the apps, and saying he'd go to grad if he got in- it was just odd to have the news be undisclosed.

 

And the whole roommate thing, the mutual friend living with the grad school going fellow is a bit of introvert, so he is very selective of roommates - so he actually does need quite a bit of time. The grad school going friend will be leaving in a month, so hopefully things will work. I guess I'll leave him to his business. Perhaps I am a bit hurt that he didn't want to share the "happy" news. We were all rooting for him to get in anyways...

[catfeeder]

Since the acceptance was the opposite of what he expected, he probably needed time to process the event and figure out what impacts it would have on his life and how to deal with those. He chose to do that privately, and it might be helpful to appreciate that not everyone deals with unexpected success in the same way. Maybe it felt like a jinx to speak it--who knows? I would get past this quickly, and I'd encourage your friends to do that same. If you truly care about someone, you respect their privacy, you enjoy their successes, and you don't feel a need to impose 'shoulds' on them.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

I agree with the others. He did not lie..he probably wanted to process the information, think about it for a bit, make sure he was making the right decision for himself and figure out what he needs to do to get himself sorted. When a woman gets pregnant often only the partner knows until after the first trimester. Even immediate family members are kept out of the loop until the pregnancy is more of a sure thing (no miscarriage). People often like to "get their ducks in order" before making public announcements regarding a life changing decision.

[geekgirl4]

You guys are right. I'll put this behind me. : ) thanks for the replies!