Trust Falls

I’d like to think that as I grow, mature, and gain more experience, the fundamental things in life get easier. It should get easier to communicate one’s needs, after countless hours of therapy. It should get easier to cook dinner, after hundreds of nights over the stove. It should get easier to build trust with someone, if not at least know who to trust in the first place.

And yet, it doesn’t. I got an email today - a work email - that alluded to some deep shit that someone I put a lot of trust in has committed. Nothing firm yet, no telling if it’s as bad as I think it is. But I see the signals that usually mean things are very much not what they seem. Much of my work life has been in arenas where trust is both fundamental to doing business and easily taken advantage of by nefarious, or more often careless, actors. So I am mentally and emotionally preparing for the worst.

I am, for better or worse, a trusting person. When I want to believe in something or someone, my brain looks for confirmation, not evidence against it. (A recent example: I got my hopes up very high during Labor Day Weekend that a terminal health crisis had, in fact, befallen our national leader. I went deeeeeep into those internet conspiracy theories, gleefully looking for proof). In my personal life, this trusting nature has some stern consequences. My heart is maybe broken more easily. I am gullible. I am incredibly easy to pull a prank on - I would have died of embarrassment if Punk’d was still going. I live in terror that I will fall for someone who just wants to manipulate me or gaslight me. I fear my own trustfulness.

That trusting bias has not developed rigid boundaries or better filters over the years. The thing that has changed the most is my ability to bounce back. That’s the marvel of experience. You don’t get better at taking the right steps, you get better at correcting the wrong ones. Because there are ALWAYS wrong steps, in every part of my life. I am human, I err.

When I read this warning email, I was immediately sad. Sad for the person at the center of the shit storm, and sad in large part, because he let himself down more than me. But I also didn’t dwell on it (ok, yes, I’m dwelling on it here, but you know). I don’t feel hurt. I don’t feel betrayed. I will likely lose money, but he will lose everything. The lovers who have hurt me in the past have made me temporarily sad, but in the end - they fumbled the bag. They lost me! Some lost me willingly, intentionally. In the end, I may have taken the trust fall, but it is them who got hurt.

So if my broken trust is the price I pay for watching others fumble, so be it. I heal quickly now.