Often, people are not who they claim to be. I am sure many of us experienced this unfortunate thing first-hand. I am, personally, a person who wants to believe in people and see the good in them. I do believe this outlook is helpful but to some extent. You cannot put all your trust and open yourself completely to others straight away. These are things that need to develop gradually and over time. I, unfortunately, found myself throughout the years in this extreme. I put a lot of my trust in others when I was younger, something that resulted in a lot of pain and disappointment.

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I remember this one occasion where someone I considered a good friend had let me down. I completely opened myself up to her, put myself in a vulnerable position, something she used to hurt me. I trusted her with a secret that I held for a long time, a secret that I didn’t tell anyone but her. Imagine my disappointment and hurt when I found out she had told others the information I told her in confidence. Of course, when I confronted her about this, she tried to brush it away. She told me that she was sorry about what had happened, that she didn’t know it was said in confidence.

I tried to move past it, but my “friend” showed me her true face once again. Once again, she found a way to betray my trust when I heard that she was going around making up lies and rumors about me. For me, that was the last straw. I wanted to believe that she had no ill will, that she was who she said she was. However, when people show us who they are through their actions, we need to believe it. She said a lot of pretty things but couldn’t live up to them. We have to believe in who people show us they are, not who they say they are.