I have a secret; i hate people who don't know how to tell one

I have a lot of pet-peeves and as any regular TOR reader will tell you they range from dudes who wear crappy sneakers with a work-suit for comfort, chicks who wear flats with dresses, people who carry huge umbrellas, people with an XL ass who sit next to you on an airplane, concert or ball game, the MTA for everything they can't do right, the US Senate, Secret Santa and Time Warner.

I can't be sure how they would rank and one day we will dedicate a TOR post to this but I have another one to add to the list.

 What I can't stand are chronic secret tellers. I have a few friends –whose identities will stay protected- who have this irritating habit of telling you a secret and then telling the same 'secret' to 10 other people.   Most people complain that others don't know how to keep a secret; my complaint is that many people don't know how to tell one.   The concept of a secret is that it is supposed to be information exclusive to two parties, once you start telling the same 'secret' to fifteen people it stops being a secret and now just becomes an undercurrent in a group of friends.

It's not that keeping a secret or knowing one is my issue, it's the fact that it very quickly becomes known that these people are not giving you any inside information as they will do a private media-blast about the information but believe by telling everybody it's 'secret' information will keep the masses from gossiping about it out of line. You can't have it both ways, either have a secret or don't

You now have a room full of people who all know something but can't say as they fear the repercussions of a broken vow to secrecy and most of the time the 'secret' is so benign and boring that there isn't even any fun to knowing it.  It's as if a message which is supposed to be exclusive now becomes one like a pass to a crappy club, completely inclusive.  So as opposed to the person knowing the secret being special, in this case the only one that is special is the one who doesn't

One guy will tell every person in the office that he went on a date with a new woman but will always preface it with "this is just between you and me" and not five minutes later you overhear him giving the same preface to another coworker. It's not that people can't keep things private but to tell somebody that it's just between you and me while you are parading the information in front of everybody else is a bit disingenuous.

 Just last week I was told about a drunken hookup between two friends but was told to not say anything to anybody about it, this was for my ears only. Well not two hours later, I got the distinct impression that not only was this public information but the original secret-teller's hope of keeping the story contained had backfired based only on the inability of the secret haver from blabbing it to everybody she knew.