Left field, right field....

[ysobelle]

Had a talk tonight about trust. I'm still thinking about it.

When I was a kid, I guess I never really thought much about the role of trust in friendship. It was far more black and white: if you don't completely trust someone, you can't be friends with them. It seemed pretty simple. Well, now, here I am, years later, and I've had my mind rather forcibly changed. I have some friends who have, I know, talked some fairly serious trash about me behind my back. I still enjoy their conversation and company, for the most part, but there's an invisible road block I put up last year, and they'll never go beyond it again. Does that make me a hypocrite? I'm not sure. I know it makes me sad. There's always a small voice in my head doing a quiet voiceover when we talk. "I'll never trust you again. I'll never trust you again. I know what you said. I know what you talked about. I know what you thought. I'll never trust you again."

It's a sad New Brain Order.

Comments

[skiafoxmorgan.livejournal.com]

hoo boy. I feel ya. I'm right there with ya. A fairly important person in my life showed their true colors and left me reeling. As I've been saying a lot lately, my world went sideways.

I'll never trust that person again.

Still, here's what you have that I don't have--the ability to still enjoy their company and conversation. You know the limitations of the friendship and within those confines, you can still be friends. I believe in evolution. It is the only constant in the world--change. What you have now may yet evolve again into something different.

What I had--is dead and was never alive. A painting on stone.

You have my sympathies, though, for I know just how painful your realization is.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

Does that make me a hypocrite?

No. I think it makes you an adult. The world is not black and white.

[i-am-entropy.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the world of the "acquaintance".

Someone you talk to who you are friendly with but who is not your friend.


And I agree with elf 100%.

[kaige-of-ct.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I have a lot of acquaintences that I don't dislike, but I know the second I leave the room they're talking smack. Shit, I'm pretty sure some of my closest friends talk smack.

I can't say I trust much of anyone, not even myself sometimes. But then again I'm a little weird :)

[eponas-pen.livejournal.com]

I think there are just different levels of friendship. There are several people with whom I work and spend a great deal of time laughing. But I also know who of them to tell my secrets and who I don't trust as far as I can throw them. It's harder for me here since my only "friends" out here have been met through my workplace. They are not necessarily people I'd otherwise spend time with but since we work together we tend to forge "friendships". You have your shopping buddies, your computer buddies, your work buddies, your pet buddies (that is buddies with whom you talk about pets, not buddies who ARE your pets.) I have a very small network of true friends. These are the people who will help me move, read a book just because I asked them to, and who I would trust to take my dog if anything happened to me. These are people who I know will be there even if months go by without talking to them. And these are the people who I still consider friends even though I may live 2300 miles away from them *wink*. And I'm still constantly being reminded to take people for who they are and not expect them to be who I want them to be.