Trust

This, I am most regretful to say, is not a happy post.

The very first time I was conned was in Primary Five, when the world I was living in still lacked its shades of gray. Things were either white, or black, and basically very simple. If there was someone who got along well with you, he/she was automatically a friend. If they ever irked you in any way, you declared to them 'I Don't Friend You Anymore' and that was that.

Children at 11 years of age shouldn't possess the necessary guile to fall anywhere in between a Friend and an Enemy, in any case. But they do.

He had come to me one afternoon, all concerned over how I seemed to have something troubling me recently. I was frankly surprised at his keen intuition and touched at his sincere concern. It wasn't long before his repeated assertations that he would keep everything I said in strict confidence goaded me to divulge the burden upon my mind, which was that I thought I could be in love with this particular girl!

The next afternoon, the very next afternoon, the girl in question came to me and told me that she had heard it all, and that she would appreciate it if I didn't go round telling the whole world about my feelings for her.

And trusting people actually gets tougher as we get older, on account of all the grays coming into the picture. For example, are you willing to invest trust in someone who once proved undeserving but who forswears to have reformed? What about people who inadvertantly hurt you owing to a perceived lack of consideration rather than malice?

It does seem like quite the lonely world sometimes, doesn't it.