The List

Per Merriam-Webster: confidant; noun: one to whom secrets are 
entrusted.

No, I do not want _your_ secrets.  Confidant, IMHO, is synonymous with 
Integrity.  Being a person of Integrity.  A person worthy of being 
told secrets.  

Being a Confidant is much more than just secrets.  Each of us have 
been engaged by someone who wants to tell us their life story.  A 
co-worker needs to vent.  Your partner needs a sounding board.  A 
child needs to work through their  most recent breakup.  I believe 
that each of us needs to 'tell our story' and be respectfully heard.

Being a Confidant, hearing the stories, is a great responsibility. 
This is where Integrity is required.  A Confidant is a person worthy 
of assuming that responsibility. It is Integrity that gives a 
Confidant the worth of their word.  

In practice the value of a Confidant is their ability to listen.  
Listening respectfully is a discipline.  It involves separating 
one's own feelings and monkey mind chatter from what someone else is 
sharing.  Offering only the appropriate cues to asure the speaker we 
are in fact 'listening'.  Listening only to hear their story.

Personal observation; my 'Social' story is carefully shaped around the 
omission of my secrets.  I am unable to tell my true story except to 
my Confidant.