About 4 or 5 years ago a very close mate split up with his missus, we both had a lot of ammunition on each other, concerning all manner of indiscretions we'd committed,to the extent we used too joke about it- our own little mutually assured destruction policy.
One day, he showed me some nonsense on his laptop and, there in the corner of the screen was a telltale AW logo.
"Hello" I thought... and kept my mouth shut. I'll just file that one away.
Anyway, eventually he ups sticks, emigrates, and re-marries.
We stay in touch, we are good mates, I still have a pile of shit on him which his gorgeous new wife wouldn't want to know. However, his dirty secrets are safe with me. I'm his mate.
A couple of years ago I had a mild bout of EAS (now fully recovered) .
At the time, I didn't know about this site, but I needed to talk to someone about it, so, safe in the knowledge he was 7,000 miles away and going to keep quiet, I told him.
Did it help?
Not really.
Did it change my relationship with him?
I think it did a little.
So, to sum up,I wish I had known about ukp at the time, I have learnt more about punting and gleaned more valuable advice here than I did from one of my closest friends even though he had a passing knowledge of the punting scene.
Seems to me there is no advantage (and potentially many disadvantages) to confiding in a mate.
We are all friends here
(Even cueball)