Do You Want People To Know Your Pinterest Dreams?

Facebook created a magic looking glass into the lives of your 500 to 1,000 closest acquaintances. Because of it, you can stay completely up-to-date on the major life events of your high school bestie and that girl you met once in the dorm—thus, eliminating the need for reunions and small talk. Twitter created a culture that reaches beyond milestones, one where you actually know what everyone is doing at that exact second. Instagram has even clued you in on what your childhood neighbor had for breakfast. Now, with Pinterest, you can predict the future—sort of.

Hear me out here: I have figured out a few pregnancies and several engagements before they were announced just by watching my friends go pin-happy over nurseries and wedding gowns. For example, one former classmate’s surprise baby wasn’t such a surprise to her followers. When she announced she was 12 weeks pregnant, she had been pinning onesies for eight weeks. One old co-worker’s engagement ring looked exactly like the rings in a Pinterest album she had made three months prior on a board with a not-so-cloaked name like “Someday.”

Guys, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to use Pinterest as a crystal ball.

But here’s the question: Why don’t people use the secret board? Could it be that they want people to know? Are they dropping hints? Do we want something to happen so bad that we put it out into the world hoping it will?

Or am I self-centered for thinking that public displays of future planning have anything to do with me?

Call me old fashioned (or paranoid), but I bury my secret wedding stash — the one that a lot of girls have regardless of boyfriend status — in a folder within a folder within a folder on my desktop. . . with fake file names. Yes, I am aware it sounds like porn. I just can’t put my hopes and dreams out there on the Internet.

Maybe it’s because I imagine there are people like me out there making assumptions about my life based on my pins. And along those lines, if I were to share my secret stash of wedding gowns or Bill Murray baby onesies and someone were to assume I was getting married or having a baby, they’d be wrong. So maybe you can’t predict the future on Pinterest. Some pins are grounded in reality, but others are the stuff of pleasurable daydreams and that’s okay.

Image via iVillage