Trust

Trust is one of the fundamental building blocks in establishing and solidifying any previous existing relationship. I have struggled to maintain a fair balance of trust (in giving and receiving) in my interactions with others throughout life.

Perhaps I’ve been betrayed way too many times to count. In elementary school, I told my friend Jim who I liked. He went ahead and told her best friend (Jennine), who told her – Nhuy. She shortly rejected me thereafter. In my freshman year of high school, I told Jonny I liked MacKenzie. He went ahead and made a puzzle out of it, subsequently telling the whole school (since the puzzle had the obvious distinction of having the letter Z in it). She “indirectly rejected” me by no longer speaking to me. And, this might have been due to way too much foolishness on my part – I told everyone in my Junior year that I liked Amy Tran, even giving her the codename “Yam Nart”. Some of my friends (not to name names), passed by her in the hallway and ended up saying Yam Nart to her face. And these are the people I supposedly am supposed to trust.

Trust really is a hard thing to grasp, but I believe I have mastered it. I am discreet in what I tell people, depending on how I feel they will ultimately react. To those who are unable to keep secrets, it’d require much effort for me to share with them intimate details of my life. Even on this “personal blog”, various details are often left out due to its ability to be misinterpreted by the wrong audience.

And so, I have learned my lesson. There is a common mantra that states “fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me.” Obviously, forgiving is a fundamentally important part of the human process. However, regaining someone’s trust after losing requires much effort. I must too admit that I have broken people’s trusts before in the past (i.e. hacking into Vincent Le’s Neopets account in middle school). And yet, I can accurately say that most people can trust me in a sense. If I promise something, I will do it. I believe going back on your promises is an inherently evil thing to do, and my moral compass will in the long run not allow it. As a result, when people do it to me, I can’t help but feel hurt. It’s relatively easy to “gain my trust”, but if you were to double cross me it, it’d be exponentially more difficult to gain it back (depending on what sort of crime/wrong was committed).

In the end, I feel people can trust me more than I can trust them. My previous experiences in the past have prevented me from “fully trusting someone”. Maybe when I meet “the one” someday, I will finally share all the intimate and permanent details of my life, both past, present, and future.