Trust me when I tell you...

Last night I had a tough time sleeping... After trying endlessly to sleep, my mind somehow drifted into that state where you think about the past. I know people say you need to forget the past and look forward to the future, but the past is the thing which shapes up into what we are now, which in turn shapes the way the future will pan out... so...

I got to thinking about trust, or the way I often find it hard to trust people fully, which in turn led me to think about the past and events in which my trust for someone was broken.

As a child I had a best friend. I can safely say I trusted this person 100%. We were like brothers, and we did almost everything together for pretty much the whole of our childhoods.

We went through primary school together, started secondary school together... it was one of those friendships you just never imagined ending. Then things started to change.

My friend started becoming friends with people I didn't really like, but who I gave a chance. Basically, the people who I had nothing in common with. Where as they were interested in drinking late at night on street corners, smoking whatever they could find and being 'interested' in girls, I was more interested in trying to do well at school, art, film... things I really loved and still love today.

This isn't to say those people cannot like the things I like, or even change, but generally, I wasn't 'feeling' this new crowd of people.

However, being best friends with this person, and wanting this friendship to last, I went along with it. I was pretty much becoming a person I really dislike, one of the people who I had nothing in common with. I guess I was experimenting with myself, dipping my toe in the metaphorical sea of a new perspective.

I spent night after night on street corners... spent a few nights running from police... experimented with substances that I have not been near since...

I did this all in the name of friendship. but at the time, I didn't realise friendship doesn't consist of simply following a crowd. I was young, naive, stupid in the most simplest of terms.

But anyway, back to the point... trust.

So, we were still really good friends. The strange thing is, I saw two sides to my friend. There was the person he was when he was with these new people, and the person he was when he was alone with me. With them, he would be the 'tough' guy, with me... that vanished.

A year or so went by of this whole thing, and with each day I was getting more and more uncomfortable with his actions, my actions, and the actions of the people around me. It got to the point where I was witnessing people like me being bullied... and I wouldn't, out of choice, do anything about it, but knowing full well what it felt like and that I should.

By this time, a new person has come on the scene. A new best friend, but not for me, for my best friend... he was part related to him, so they shared this 'bond' that I couldn't compete with. The normal routine started happening where slowly but surely, the best friend I knew and trusted would let me down. We would plan to do something, the other guy would show up and suddenly our plans were dropped like a lead balloon.

I put up with this, holding on as much as possible to the friendship we once had.

Then one day, the three of us went for a walk.

Now, I disliked this guy who had barged his way into the middle of our friendship... not because of that, but because of the way he was. He was basically the kid you see who things he is better than everyone, and who has an ego the size of a small planet, and that's not something I find attractive in a friend.

Anyway, so we went for a walk.

To cut a long story short, that day, during that walk, I was beaten up. Literally to the point where I was on the floor having my face kicked in, for no reason I could even begin to think of. If you know me, you will know I'm not a violent person, and this extends to defending myself. I'm not strong, I have very little power over anyone in terms of this sort of thing, so I was just on the floor, crying for him to stop, while all the time, blow after blow, I was being kicked.

The hard part of all this, was that my childhood friend, the guy I trusted 100%... when I looked up, was just stood there. He wasn't the one kicking me, sure... but he was stood there, watching me, not helping, not telling the guy kicking me to stop.

I don't know what hurt more... the fact that I was literally being beaten to the point of blood pouring from my nose, or the fact that my best friend of over ten years was stood watching it happen and choosing to do nothing.

And that was that... trust broken. 100% broken.

From that point on, I did what I always do when trust is broken and stopped talking to him, tried to avoid him, pretty much kept myself to myself and moved on. It's the way I deal with friendships and relationships breaking down, I prefer to just cut off any contact, because if I have contact that last image and the reason for that friendship ending comes back to mind and it hurts me again.

I guess though, this was when I realised that people sometimes change, and not always for the better, and also... from this... I grew stronger. I realised that rather than try to salvage something which is only making things hard, if you realise that it is going bad, end it before it gets worse. It might pessimistic, and I know not everyone is like him, but that seems to be the best option for me.

So, me and this friend literally didn't speak for years... and now we lead different lives. He has a girlfriend who has a baby and he has become the father figure, he seems genuinely happy and honestly, I think he could be a great father figure... protective, loving... everything you need.

And I'm... well, look back through this blog and you will see.

But to the matter at hand, now, I have a hard time dealing with trust. I used to dish out 100% trust to anyone who came into my life, and now I don't. The worst thing is, even if people give me 100% trust, and no reason to think that they will ever do anything bad, I still have that little memory in the back of my mind that triggers this warning, that tells me never to trust anyone fully, which in turn just makes things more difficult.

It's kind of like this black cloud hanging over me all the time, and I just expect it to start raining at any moment... I expect anyone I am with, at any moment, to just break that trust.

Of course, there were other moments in my life that also added to this trust issue, I mean, my own father left me just after my first birthday, so it's not as if I was new to whole 'let down' side of people...

Sorry for the long and rambling blog. I guess a sleepless night and too much time to think just really made me look at things again. I don't expect anyone will have read this, and in honesty, I'm not sure anyone bothers to read these things at all anymore... I don't blame you, they are long and boring and always about myself, in fact, I always hark on about myself all the time, on every site, every blog, in every conversation... I suppose I'm just a bit selfish.

Anyway...