Personal Experience: You can't trust anyone

[DarthShizNit]

Lol family is the worst thing to trust...ALWAYS.

[chamaeleo]

To Nazgul Killer and Vizsla's excellent advice, I'll add this:

Consider that trust should always be mutual. Are you trustworthy? Have any of the folks who've stabbed you in the back, ever before heard you disparage someone whom you would consider a friend? Whenever I hear a friend talk about others (even non-friends or casual acquaintances) a red flag signals my brain to start filtering what I say, and that I should assume whatever I do say might as well be public knowledge. Something everyone does, whether they're conscious of it or not.

If you refuse to trust others, even in small things, then others will stop trusting you. You risk becoming ostracized. Best to just not give others any justification for back-stabbiness. Cultivate an aura of self confidence, ease, and emotional stability....and try to simply float above the fray. Avoid routinely making catty, snarky remarks about anyone. Shrug your shoulders when you hear them, as if they don't interest you in the slightest, especially when they do (such as when you're the target). When you start hearing that so-n-so thinks you've become arrogant, you know you've won. They think that you think you're better than them, which you don't....even though, in a sense, you are. That is only a manifestation of their insecurity.

And that is basically how you ditch the realm of High school drama and move on into adulthood.

[Simon Cashmere]

In my personal experience, you can't trust anyone that doesn't have the same last name as you. Only family.

Because "Best friend," "girlfriend," "bro," etc., no matter what you call them, they will act in what they believe is in your best interests. This means going behind your back to other friends and failing to bring many issues to you up front. Oftentimes this situation compounds as the said person gets closer to you. As they get to know you more and more it seems they become increasingly certain that they know what is best for you and feel less guilty about acting upon that without consulting you directly.

Maybe I've just turned into a bitter person, but... at the teenage level, at least (Im 17 now, looking back on the last 4 years,) it seems like you can trust no one at school. Don't make the mistake of telling (or even keeping secrets.) You just have to act on your own sometimes and not depend upon others to deliver, especially when it involves passing information around that you cannot see.

TLDR: In general don't trust anyone close unless they're your family.

Trust, but verify.

Unfortunately you will only be able to trust very few people concerning money. I've watched all sorts of people I've seen who I thought were great people, become terribly unreasonable over money. I've also watched all sorts of fights over wills when someone dies.

An old army warrant officer said to me 'You will surrouned yourself with all sorts of people in your life, but you will only ever have 3-4 close friends, if you are lucky.' Keep secrets, secret. People love telling other people secrets, and will of course say...you cannot tell anyone BUT....xx. Best to say nothing to anyone, then it cannot be leaked.

Trust is a quality that is valued because it is rare.

[Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert]

Excellent, you learnt early lad, 17 years old. I think I learnt around that age as well.

In life, I'd not say everyone but, most cannot be trusted. And trust does not come like that, you don't meet a pal in school and trust him, trust takes years, half a life even. It depends much, you can trust your father, maybe you cannot, but perhaps you could trust your son... or not, it depends a lot, and that answer only you could know, now now, trusting bloody "bros"? Girlfriends? Friends at school? Yes, mate, it would be foolish to trust someone you barely know. I mean KNOW, not simply know name, favorite bands, favorite activities, really know, to the point where you can predict what the person feels or thinks without even asking, then you will know if can trust... or not.

[Future Filmmaker]

I've experienced the contrary. Family can be some of the most calculating, unforgiving, and manipulative influences in one's life. That's the way it was in my case.

[DarthShizNit]

I've experienced the contrary. Family can be some of the most calculating, unforgiving, and manipulative influences in one's life. That's the way it was in my case.

Listen to this man.

Lets put it this way, If I were a 9th Century Eastern Roman Emperor I would have put out all of my families eyes by this point in time because I trust them the least (cept my dad, I would just banish him to a nice island monestary, I think he would enjoy that). At least with friends you are able to judge their character and trustworthiness before cementing any relations, family you're born with and doomed to have a certain amount of contact with even if they are complete and total bastards (I talk of my mother of course, my father is one of the better people I've met in my life).

[ccllnply]

Wow, judging by this thread, I've been incredible lucky with my friends and family. Although, I might argue that some people are overreacting.

It sounds to me like the OP is accusing people of people untrustworthy because they made mistakes or because they weren't able to read minds which I don't think this is fair. Lines like this:

Because "Best friend," "girlfriend," "bro," etc., no matter what you call them, they will act in what they believe is in your best interests. This means going behind your back to other friends and failing to bring many issues to you up front. Oftentimes this situation compounds as the said person gets closer to you. As they get to know you more and more it seems they become increasingly certain that they know what is best for you and feel less guilty about acting upon that without consulting you directly.

I mean surely if they believed it was in your "best interests" there is no malice in it. Hardly worthy of being labelled untrustworthy.

I think you should maybe re-evaluate this, especially at your age. I mean, unless you've had a serious breech of trust, I would think 17 is probably too young to made a definite opinion on this. School is not a good gauge of all this since these stupid trust games are played all the time. I know, I only finished school a few months ago and only recently have I realised and tried to stop playing these stupid games.

[Arvedui01]

I probably should modify the title, with more emphasis on "trust" in teenage years and school environments. There are so many cases I wish what I thought were my trustworthy, close, friends would have just come to me up front rather than pass information around (that directly concerns me,) behind my back because they believed that was the best (or even worse, most entertaining,) way to go about things. None of my friends have spread rumors, but in the keeping of secrets; freshman and junior crushes etc., which now seem juvenile and immature from my senior perspective, I could not count on them.

[Salem1]

Honestly, I wouldn't concern myself with this at your age and I'm just 2-3 years older. The reason why is that the ''friends'' you have in high school will cease to mean anything to you sooner than you think and for causes you most likely will not foresee. High school is a giant mock exam, treat it as such, don't make up your mind about anything in there.

[Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert]

I've experienced the contrary. Family can be some of the most calculating, unforgiving, and manipulative influences in one's life. That's the way it was in my case.

You probably think like that because you are young, most young lads think the same, and you are right on some parts, families are usually manipulative indeed, but they at least have good intentions, unlike most scum you will meet in your life. Your family will be there for you when you need it, and of course they will make you feel awful about it, but it's well, their ways to make sure you don't make the same mistakes twice.

[elfdude]

Ugh, this thread is rather depressing except for a few people who are giving rather good advice.

I must really question what you believe trust is. Trust is something you give someone when you're sure that they aren't out to get you. This is something that you should apply to pretty much the entire world. You should trust that a random stranger isn't trying to hurt you. This doesn't mean to make yourself deliberately vulnerable however. That is a test of trust and testing trust rarely ends good.

You mentioned secrets, however I fail to see the connection between keeping secrets and trusting others. Keeping secrets is simply valuing privacy. Someone who values privacy may also be malevolent. Keeping secrets doesn't mean you trust them. Similarly this doesn't mean that you don't trust your friends or family. Always trust everyone.

What you're learning is prudence, and practicality, and with a little luck you'll begin to realize that there's very few things people can do to legitimately hurt you that isn't due to you perceiving it that way. The jester is not insulted by being called a fool. Regardless of the intent of others to be malevolent, your mind is ultimately the gatekeeper of what hurts and what doesn't. Don't allow yourself to care about it, don't fear it, don't allow it to be true. If someone has a problem with you and doesn't come to you about it odds are it is not a legitimate problem.

The world is going to judge you all your life. The goal of our teenage years is to come to a judgement of ourselves that is independent of any other person's words or opinions. Does this mean you're perfect? Of course not. However a flaw is something that you can see logically, emotions need not enter into it, and if it's truly worth fixing, you always can. If it's not don't dwell on it and allow it to harm you.

More importantly don't give up on trusting the world. That's a foolish endevour because all it will result in is you being alone and worse becoming paranoid, and anxious. As far as friends and family goes, your friends will have a variety of different character traits throughout your life. Some you'll absolutely adore and will share your values very closely, others you'll look up to, some you'll almost hate at times. This should be no surprise.

So again, does trust mean you tell every person every secret? No. Does that mean that they're not your friends? Of course not. A friend is simply someone who you value for whatever reason being around. You'll make mistakes with your friends, you'll think one friend understands something when they actually don't, you'll believe friends have traits that they really don't. But you'll learn by interacting with them how to continue doing so.

Ultimately if you can't trust someone to be a human every bit as complex as you yourself are and with every bit of difficulty navigating social contracts as you can imagine then it's going to be very difficult to ever feel fulfilled, loved, or less than isolated. Do I think my friends are private enough to tell them every secret? Of course not. However I deeply love my friends even what I consider flaws, how I love them is just as varied as they are and this should be your standard.

You're probably never going to meet someone with the same exact values as you, and you're probably never going to force someone to change for you or to behave how you expect them. That's neither trust, nor love, it's oppression and no friend oppresses their friends. Yes, if you need to assemble a team who you depend on for your life, then having a bit higher standard is important, when it comes to sleeping with your wife, yes a higher standard is important, otherwise you lose nothing by trusting people so long as you remember that trust is different than allowing yourself to be vulnerable and one day you'll learn how to be vulnerable with the right people.

Anyways, I would highly suggest you ignore a whole host of the posts here encouraging you to not trust. Especially in such formative years as this, trust issues create depression and anxiety issues which are far worse than any transient betrayal you might experience especially in your early life. Don't expect your friends to take a bullet for you, and don't expect them to do everything to please you. A lot of what they do might frustrate you or make you mad but that's part of living, and ultimately learning to live is the most important thing any of us can do. Ultimately though you're friends because of what you enjoy in them, not because of what you don't.

[Cold_Mac]

You probably think like that because you are young, most young lads think the same, and you are right on some parts, families are usually manipulative indeed, but they at least have good intentions, unlike most scum you will meet in your life. Your family will be there for you when you need it, and of course they will make you feel awful about it, but it's well, their ways to make sure you don't make the same mistakes twice.

Or at least should be there when you need them. There are various types of personalities, with diverse compability and of course, open to changes. Especially prior reaching 27-30 years. Some bondings are wonderful, some work out okay, others not and rarely, there are the hard-cline clashes.
Its benefits depend on the way the respective individuals gain their energy - either introvertive or extroverted. Introvers are a pretty unsearched scientific topic and outnumbered by 1 in 3, so there are loads of half truths out there.

You can never expect to find a person that becomes a lifelong close-friend and a person outside of the family has to earn the gift of trust.
Determine yourself how you want to be treated by others; If they hurt you, why waste their time with them? Family always comes with a burden but the bond is usually lifelong. Very good, proven friends are useful for anybody. Its my personal choice but I never see the advantage in having a oversized circle of "friends."
You don't own others any allegiance by principle. Don't make your reality & views a plasticine of their opinion. Don't make yourself relative to their sympathy. Make your trust a gift. Don't be daft to command which values are worth breaking working relationships/trying to enforce others to believe them.

If they have done nothing wrong, give them a fair chance. Self-trust is the first step towards happiness.