[Redway]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

I'm cynical about most people nowadays.

It takes me awhile to start trusting someone.

Remember what I said about trusting your own worth and sense of self more than what people who barely know you think. Sometimes people miscategorise the person they’ve randomly decided to have a problem with so much that it’s like they’re confusing you with a completely different person, whether it’s on forums or in the face-to-face world. And sometimes they actually have got you mixed up with someone-else. Either way, that’s more about them and the biased, skewed filters their perception of you is coming through than it is about anything to do with you as you truly are. Misdirected, confused projection, fuelled through the lens of their own issues, assumptions or unresolved experiences. Or, like I say, legit. mixing you up with someone-else entirely because you might remind them of someone (which, again, has nothing to do with you; in any case, it’s not your bag to figure out why some random stranger has a problem with you).

On a more general level I do hear what you’re saying about trusting. Especially if you’re someone who’s quite reserved, you might-well feel more at home with the people who already know you than exerting energy trying to know someone well enough to know if you can trust them (sometimes you can intuit it from their aura, but even that can be misleading) and whether they’re safe to let in. Sometimes people who are well-known to you do the dirty on you after years and years of friendship and erode the trust. Someone who was initially trustworthy might end up doing you really dirty.

Do you operate with the stranger-danger mentality a lot?