How do you know?

I don't think you do, really. You start out small, see what happens, stay clear-eyed, and keep upping the ante. At some point it becomes a leap of faith.

Oh. Hmmm. So there's no way to really know without the leap of faith at some point then? That's interesting. What do you mean exactly by upping the ante?

Trust the person with more and more important things. Loan him or her a book, see what happens. Tell him or her a secret, see what happens. Etc., etc.

I don't think anyone can absolutely know, no, it's just that if you're careful enough and give it enough time it can be an educated guess. But there still is an element of faith involved. (I'm speaking mostly about a romantic relationship, but applies to most relationships I think.)

Ok. Geez. I wonder where I got the idea you could know. Dating is kind of a scary thing when you realize you don't really know if you can trust this person or not. How do people get beyond that? What is it that holds others back from getting beyond that? I mean... I don't know. It all just seems so complicated to me.

Things were much easier to "understand" when I thought there was a "God" pretty much doing all my thinking, looking, protecting, and whatever else for me. *sigh*

I agree with Soz. Trust is something your dole out in small steps and you see what happens. If the person violates your trust then you have reached the point of maximum trust with that person. If they don't violate your trust then you can feel more comfortable entrusting them with "bigger" things.

Trust is something you earn and/or give in small increments over time (sometimes decades!).

Dating is scary! Period!

When I met my husband, I was about a year removed from a relationship where I'd been badly hurt, and he was in the same position. We just acknowledged each other's wariness and went slowly and didn't take the wariness personally. (In fact, it was a relief -- "whew, him too.")

I think that's the scariest part of dating, making yourself vulnerable to being hurt. If you just put up a wall you won't get anywhere, intimacy-wise, but if you just dive in headlong, you're setting yourself up to get badly hurt (unless you're extraordinarily lucky). So you have to find that balance, and it's tricky.

Great way to put it.

IMO, everyone pretty much gets through it the same way - trial and error.

You go slow, try to stay as objective as you can without over-analyazing and you move ahead - one step at a time. It helps to have a friend you can trust to be able to bounce thngs off of too!

Wow sozobe. That's kind of neat actually. I wish for the same. Someone who could acknowledge the wariness without taking it personally. Well, I think maybe I found someone. But I'm not sure and I'm scared because I feel like I might want to start trusting him... a little. He's more than put up with my walls for several months now... quite patiently actually.

He asked me out once a month or so ago and then royally blew it with me within ten minutes of asking me out. Yet has still just waited patiently. Not asked me out again, but just kept talking to me like a friend. But today all the sudden I realized I might actually WANT to start giving this person a little trust. I think he's earned something at this point huh?

But what? I can't even believe he's hung around this long actually. Sheesh. We're suppose to go out to dinner Thursday. Maybe giving him another chance at a date is enough for now? Today I was thinking about that though and then realized I wanted to start trusting him a little and it was like...



I do? Oh. I don't know what I'm doing here. Shoot.

Fishin, I understand your point about "if someone violates your trust then you've reached maximum trust with that person." However, that concept is actually quite new to me, because for 17 yrs it was all about "forgiveness" regardless of how heinous the crime. So I'm a little confused about what you said simply because does that mean I just walk away from that person... or it just never moves beyond that point because they violated my trust?

It does help to have a friend to bounce things off of... unfortunately at this point ALL my friends are pushing for me to get with this guy. They think he's perfect for me. So no matter what I say... their opinion is slanted because they WANT me to hook up with him. If anything them pushing me has only caused me to keep him at arms length even longer.

Whether you walk away or just don't extend trust any farther is a decision you have to make at the time. If someone does something that hurts you badly then it might be best to walk away. It also depends on how much you have invested in the realtionship with them. If you just met them then maybe you just decide you won't associate with them again. If you've known them for a long time maybe you just don't divulge personal info to them. There aren't any easy answers for this stuff. Trust is teh foundation of pretty much all relationships and we have a whole category here just to dicuss problems with those.



So you don't trust your friend's motives?

Whether you walk away or just don't extend trust any farther is a decision you have to make at the time. If someone does something that hurts you badly then it might be best to walk away. It also depends on how much you have invested in the realtionship with them. If you just met them then maybe you just decide you won't associate with them again. If you've known them for a long time maybe you just don't divulge personal info to them. There aren't any easy answers for this stuff. Trust is teh foundation of pretty much all relationships and we have a whole category here just to dicuss problems with those.



So you don't trust your friend's motives?

LOL uuuum Yes and no actually. I sort of do because they know this person much better than I do at this point... but... hummm... we met at a bar. I made it a point long before I met him to decide I would never trust a guy I met at a bar. Self protection mode see. My friends have no problem meeting someone at a bar. So to me I just felt, well you know... they just want me to do what they do. I don't want to. I met him at a bar... so... Ixnay on the atingday...

Live your own life and not the one your friends have decided for you.

Exactly! That's why I resisted at first.

I wouldn't make meeting at a bar the trust line. Sure, I'd be wary. I met, at bars, two really great human beings whom I dated for a while, and kept friends with - not usual re relationships, but it happens. One became my attorney sometime later, and the other is a friend of thirty plus years.

On the other hand, yeah, the whole bar thing is an odd way to meet people over time, and there is a lot of room for total bull/hitting, even..... gaaaah, by oneself. I stopped all that, myself, not to put that on you.

Met my husband when I was just living...
I was sharing a huge loft space with a woman artist friend, each of us taking an office as our own room, one of the bathrooms each, shared the kitchen, and used the other 2500 square feet as painting studio and art gallery. Pretty quickly we found we had huge expenses, more than our work incomes provided, and we decided to 'sublet' out part of it to other artists. We rented a tiny corner to a jeweler, held painting classes ourselves, and finally sublet the main space to a theater group three nights a week. Well, that was a total debacle, except that my to-be husband was in the theater group.

This may not be true, probably isn't, but it seems to me that regular life meeting situations are less fostering of the bul/sht scenario than some bar scenes.

Plus, we're talking US singles bar scene - what do I know about the bar scene in this decade in the US, much less any place else in the world.

That is cool how you met your husband. I would love to (oops hehe) have a real life meeting like that. You are so right though osso! The BS the bar fosters is almost unbelievable at times! The funny thing is... the way I met this guy... even noticed this guy actually is that he happened to be at karaoke bar I was at one night. He approached me for no other reason than to compliment me on my skills at shooting men down. Said he'd been watching me do it for about a half an hour and was impressed. Then walked away.

A few weeks later I saw him at the regular karaoke bar I hung out at and again... he said the same thing... walked away. A few weeks later he came back there and I got him before he got me... I made a whole joke of it before he could say a word. Then I'd see him on and off. It was hit and miss for months because I slowed down going so much and he didn't go that much either. One day we started actually talking and I was like... humm...

Interesting man. Ok. And things just kind of went on from there. He's never made a move on me. He's never tried anything at all actually, which to me is pretty impressive just given the environment we met in. We've never talked in depth about why I shoot men down. He just knows I do it. Most guys at the bar are ridiculous. Dropping lame lines on anything with two legs and a *****, slurring their words, going chick to chick... ack. No thanks.

I tell them all the same thing. "I'm here to sing. You see that little "hotty" over there... she's what you're looking for. Not me." While in the back of my mind I've thought maybe... just maybe... it could happen... but hummm... I seriously doubted it. I never went looking for it. I've heard it all. Played the game when I was younger. I'm not even IN the game anymore. I just want to sing and have fun with my friends. That's it.

Yet here's this person I seem to share some common interests with. Who hasn't made one move to get me in bed, hasn't dropped one line on me... unless that initial thing was a line and just went right over my head... he's just been nice. Been a friend. *shrugs* I don't know.

One good way to learn if someone is trustworthy is to.... oh.... I don't know.... meet them for coffee or have dinner with them, maybe go to a karoke bar and have fun, concerts are good, art shows, really the list is endless.

Dating should be fun, not scary. It's just a commitment of a few hours. Go with the idea that it will be fun. Nothing more. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.

I don't know a single person who has not had their heart broken. That's how we learn. You can't just stop learning because someone broke your heart. I had two serious heart breaks (and broke a few) until I landed on the real deal. I wouldn't have recognized it if it hadn't been for the learning.

It seems to me that you have invested a lot in this guy and you haven't even gone on one date with him.

Just thought I'd offer a different perspective.

I ALWAYS start by trusting people until they show that they do not deserve my trust.
After that, however, I think it is impossible to win my trust back!

Having said that, that does not mean, that I would give a stranger 1000 Euro and expect them to give it back!
I might be trusting, but I am not stupid!