Trust....

I have just realized it has been over a year since I last wrote on this blog.  One helluva year.  I know my current state of mind is not a good indicator of how I am right now.  I am tired (to the core of my being), it has been the longest and most insane week, I have a sore throat, it is getting really warm here in the desert and I am gatvol. 

So taking my current state of mind out of the equation, I want to ask you - oh wise ones of the internet world - about trust and communication and social media.  Why you may ask.  Well I am having some crises of faith in the human race to do the right thing and I can't work out if I am too old fashioned for this brave new world or the human race is on a slippery slope to being devious and lying by omission.

Let me paint a scenario or two.

It is a celebratory occasion for you.  You decide to get a handful of friends together to celebrate said occasion.  You include people from the multiple strands of your life because you are kind and you want to be inclusive.  And because it is rather fun and nice to hang out with your friends.  You celebrate.  You have a lovely evening. The END.  Well actually no, it transpires, it isn't actually the end.  You see, you discover by someone forgetting they are lying by omission and mistakenly letting slip, that they actually have been in touch with someone from that celebratory event.  Someone who you have not seen or heard from since that night.  Someone who is very dear to your heart.  Someone who the other person has nothing in common with and, prior to your special occasion, had never met (and in all likelihood would never ever have met if it wasn't for you being kind and inclusive).  You see my friends - two worlds of yours that you never ever intended to collide are now not only colliding, they are colluding. Behind your back. 

And there are a few other endings to the above scenario (it has happened THAT often).  It's a bit like those books you read as a kid where you could choose the ending you wanted.  Except I can't.  I can't choose the ending because my sensitive heart is getting wounded by the blurring of boundaries.  The human desire for instant social contact.  And it is an invasive feeling.  A bit like water trickling through the cracks between bricks on a patio in a rainstorm.  It is slow and painful.  It is deeply hurtful.  One minute people meet.  The next minute someone has given someone a phone number, but never been brave enough to say something to the mutual party who introduced them.  Someone is magically following someone else on social media when they have met once, because of you.  How they even figured out each others names is beyond you.  Suddenly people you have known half your life are telling things to people they have met once in a lifetime.  Secrets are being harbored, rendezvouses are happening.  And none of it with the honesty and transparency that is due to the very person who made the introduction in the first place.

I was talking with very dear friends on the weekend about my latest 'scenario' that has happened.  I was trying so hard to put my finger on what I found distressing about the situations that were popping up.  We discussed it at length.  Partly because I am so sad about the way humans treat one another and partly because by talking I make sense of the world around me. 

And what are some of the conclusions I got to you may be wondering.  Some are simple, others are more complex.  I have no family of my own.  I have no partner to come home to in the evening.  I have no children to love.  And whilst that might be the world I have chosen, knowing that fact does not make it any easier to swallow.  I have my family and I have my friends.  That is it.  I have nobody else to love.  Nobody else to pour my heaps and heaps and heaps of attention and affection into.  And so my family graciously allow me to love them exuberantly.  But my friends, my friends may not quite get it.  I have lots of varied and lovely friends.  Each of them fulfills different roles in my life.  I am not very good at shallow friendships, I am naturally far too intense for those.  I need depth and insight and mental stimulation and lots and lots of affirmation from friends.  I need to be seen as a singular human when they think of me.  Not me and the rest of the people they have met due to me.  I don't want my worlds to collide.  I don't want to hear news second hand from other people - I am not the 3rd angle in a triangle.  I am me.  I stand alone.  And your friendship with me, is with me because I have something to add to your life and you see me, truly see me.

I have no idea what to do with the tears that are sitting on the edge of my eyelids.  I thought I was ok until this evening I suddenly saw two people who met through me are now liking each others photos on Instagram.  And that shouldn't bother me.  Truly it shouldn't.  But it does.  Because it means people went out of their way to make that connection.  And what else are they doing that I am going to hear about in the slip of a tongue or text sent in error to the wrong person (true story!)

I need to find my way back on this.  I need to find my peace. I have no idea what that point is.  The rebellious child in me says 'stop introducing your friends to one another'.  And then the logical adult responds with 'life is too short, trust people to do the right thing'.  And maybe that is where my biggest struggle is.  I simply don't trust people's intentions when it comes to desire for another human.  And that is what so many of these situations come down to - a forsaking of respect for the other person in a friendship for a reason that makes me shudder.  I struggle to trust, not because I don't want to, but because my intuition has never let me down and my past experience has taught me that intentions are not always honorable.  I don't know if I am alone on this front, I can't imagine I am.  Any sage words of advice dear friends?