Trust

This is something I’ve always grappled with. I’ve never easily trusted people and didn’t feel many people could be trusted. This may have been chocked up from experience; friends who weren’t really friends, boyfriends who were jerks, and a grandmother who liked badmouthing my father and stepmother. Surrounded by people like that makes you think differently about people in general.

Since moving to Ottawa I’ve learnt that people can be trusted. Some took some time. Some never gained it. Some others gained it wholeheartedly. While I still don’t willingly hand my trust over, I’ve found it a bit easier as I’ve matured. I’m a pretty good judge of character (again learning from past experiences), but once in a while, I’m fooled. Maybe I’m not fooled, but I feel pretty stupid.

A while ago I met someone who was a fellow blogger and we got chatting. Ironically, she has more food allergies than I do, and that’s quite a few. One that we share is gluten. We got talking about gluten-free food, products, restaurants, problems, etc. We continued our discussion via email and it seemed like a decent discussion –people talking about ideas, experiences, and of course life.

Not too long ago I happened to be checking out some updates on her blog and I saw something that seemed eerily familiar. At first I told myself it was a coincidence, but I really knew better. She had many of the things I had said written and made it very clear she disagreed. I was shocked. Then I was angry, then I was saddened. Now I’m just ambivalent.

Sometimes I feel like I’m being too sensitive. Sometimes I take things the wrong way. Aware that this might have happened I asked the Honey to take a look and explained the situation. Luckily for me, he knows when I need something sugar-coated and when I want the truth. He read it. He wasn’t impressed.

It was someone I had trusted and shouldn’t have. It is a reminder that I should continue to trust my gut instincts and it is okay to keep my guard up. What I find most disappointing is that this person couldn’t discuss it. Instead she had to disagree via her blog, a place I find very public. Ironically, I don’t push my ideas on people and I listen to what they have to say whether they agree with me or not. In contrast, I felt her opinion was being forced upon me. It seemed she had something to prove. She disagreed and made it appear that she knew better and more than me, and was the authority for gluten-free. Her tone bordered on militant and fear-mongering. I’ve been dealing with food allergies for 10 years and it made me doubt a lot of what I know (even though I know many of her points were incorrect or inaccurate). It was a little scary.

Maybe that is the downside of the written word. It is a wonderful tool to communicate, but once in a while written words become a very powerful tool. In this case they felt like a weapon.