Tell me your secrets

We share a mortgage, a car, three cats and a surname, and yet what was I unwilling to share with my husband today? My EasyJet password.

In the connected world of the web, what is the last safeguard of personal privacy? The humble password. That single combination of letters (and numbers, CAPS and special characters in some very strict circles) that keeps our secrets safe, and our identities sound. My husband and I may have a joint chequebook, but when it comes to online account, I ain't sharing.

"What have you got to hide?" he asked - as indeed might you, dear reader. If you've been spotting the pattern so far, you'll know the answer to all the questions in this post is the same: my password. But you'll notice this time it's lost any adjective - and that's because I'm not talking about just my EasyJet password. Oh no. For my husband to "discover" that I've a preference for window seats is hardly going to provide a groundbreaking revelation. But were he to soon realise that this particular password forms the basis of the vast majority of my internet account passwords - well then, things might just take off (no flying pun intended).

Yes yes, fool that I am. Every password should be unique, extraordinarily hard to guess (and remember), and thus any damage minimized were that password to be compromised. And it wouldn't matter if it were just my Nectar points balance, favourite Body Shop basket and even (wait for it) the £5 balance I've got left on my Moonpig account that was up for grabs. Nope. It's almost everything.

(I say "almost" with a sigh of relief, knowing there is one thing that has its own, extremely unusual password: my email account. The email address I've had since I was 18; the email address that contains secrets long since forgotten but precious in their memory; the email address that I can use to verify and monitor every other online account I've had since. If I can suggest one smart thing, it's to have a separate password for this.)

But back to the other accounts: do they really matter? Of course not. Yes he could browse my Amazon history, or check up on what I've been buying on my credit card, but in reality, why would he? Why spoil the surprise of his next birthday present? Or faint when he realises just how expensive it is to fill up the car? And if I trust him with my life savings, and not to strangle me in my sleep, why wouldn't I trust him with these trivial matters?

The answer is: it's the wrong question. Of course it's not about trust, or protectiveness - or even paranoia. It's about being able to be have my own online persona that's representative entirely of me, that's under my complete control, and that's truly mine (even if it's not always me - but that's for another post...).

 

To Like

I like what

You like, and

He likes it too, what

We like, because

You like it. People.

They like

To like the same things.

I set myself the challenge above when I was 17: write a poem based on a conjugation (even then I found it hard to abandon logic and simply embrace freestyle arts).

It comes to mind again now not as an exercise, but a simple truth in relation to true friendships. I've come to realise that "true" is unbelievably easy to discern: it's the people who talk to me with excitement, but with a glisten in their eyes. And the reason's simple: it's because we recognise we're kindred spirits. For all the attraction that "different" people hold while one is growing up (and I've pedestalled a few), "true" friends are people who have a bond that's been formed through mutual appreciation of the similar.

With some it's new experiences embarked upon together (a recent skiing holiday solidified a gorgeous friendship); with others it's a baring of the soul that brings a very special closeness (I've watched this happen to my husband in particular over the past couple of years). Or for a third set, it's simply an undeniable mutual respect: a shared humour, a common niche, or more often just an inexplicable realisation that you're the same kind of people.

And that's the key: the same. Old friends can be best friends - but so too can new ones. A dear friend once said to me that sometimes we have to see old friends less often simply to make room for new ones - and I knew instantly what she meant.

But then, when we talk, our eyes glisten.