Why I Trust You

YOU LIVE, YOU LEARN ::Nearly thirty years ago, a woman I barely knew changed the way I think about trust. I was in the studio of the renowned sculptorDawn McNuttin Nova Scotia. She weaves metals to create beautiful and thrilling work that has been exhibited around the world. I fell in love with one of her pieces: the head of a woman. Her name was Lydia, Dawn told me. Lydia was small and beautiful and I wanted her. The problem was that Dawn only took cash — this was before we all wandered around tapping our phones to buy things (though I still pull out my card) — and I didn't have enough on me. 'Take her,' Dawn said. 'Send me a cheque when you get back to Toronto.' Share I remember looking at her dumbfounded. 'Why would you trust me?' And Dawn looked back at me dumbfounded too, as though I had asked the strangest question in the world. 'Why wouldn't I?' she said. 'You've given me no reason not to.' I have never forgotten that. Until that moment, I think I understood trust the way most of us are taught to understand it: something people earn. Something we cautiously dole out in teaspoons after a person has successfully completed whatever invisible obstacle course we have constructed for them. Dawn flipped the whole thing upside down. Trust was the starting position. Distrust was what had to be earned. I sent the cheque; Lydia has been with me ever since. So has Dawn's philosophy. Which has come to bite me in my juicy ass more than once. Shaun Proulx is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. People have lied to me. Betrayed me. Taken advantage of my generosity. Broken confidences. Seen my kindness as weakness. Stolen from me. Said one thing and done another. I have sometimes look back at situations and wondered how the hell I didn't see what was coming. And yet, somehow, I remain reluctant to become suspicious. Which brings me, strangely enough, toAlanis Morissette. 'She allowed me to begin with her as a good person.' Yesterday I was reading inPage Six(my daily morning reading) about theastonishing betrayalsshe has experienced from people she trusted professionally, those she trusted most. Her former business manager, Jonathan Schwartz, admitted to stealing $4.8 million from her. Now Morissette is suing a former tour manager, alleging the woman tried to blackmail her into an extraordinary 15-year employment arrangement by threatening to implicate her in a drug-trafficking scandal. The former tour manager denies the allegations. The Grammy-winner and I have a good friend in common, who, when I sent him the story, confirmed that the singer operates from a wide open heart. Something Schwartz himself said about the woman he stole millions from tracks with this assessment. 'I think inherently within her soul, Alanis wants to trust people.' Well, fuck. I know that person; I am that person. All this has seen me wondering all day yesterday and up until now: at what point does continuing to trust people become naïveté? Surely there is a point where experience is supposed to harden us. We learn, put up gates, scrutinize motives. We start looking for the catch, the hook. But what exactly have we won then? Because while there is a cost to being betrayed, sometimes an enormous one - and I know the painful sting of paying it - I feel there is a bigger cost to living your whole experience expecting betrayal. Imagine moving through life believing that everybody is potentially working an angle. Or meeting someone wonderful and immediately looking for the flaws, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Think about how gross you'd feel loving someone while simultaneously conducting a quiet audit of their behaviour, watching for evidence that eventually they will hurt you. Just typing that put my stomach in knots. Maybe you avoid some pain that way? But what else do you avoid? Intimacy, friendship, love, all require trust. Every meaningful human relationship asks us, eventually, to hand another person something they could break. We hand over our hearts, secrets, money, reputation, we give over our house key. And there's no surefire way to know what the person will do with any of it. Perhaps I have been confusing two things all these years; maybe I have confused trust and blindness. Share Shaun Proulx They aren't the same. I can trust you and still pay attention. I can believe you are decent until you demonstrate otherwise without ignoring it when you do. I can have an open heart without leaving my front door unlocked. And, when somebody betrays that trust, perhaps the lesson isn't:I should never have trusted them. Perhaps the lesson is simply:Now I know. Dawn McNutt didn't give Lydia to me because she possessed some magical ability to know I wouldn't stiff her. She gave Lydia to me because, at that moment, I had given her no reason to believe I would. There was something incredibly generous in that. She allowed me to begin with her as a good person. Maybe that's what I still want to offer people. Not unlimited chances or willful blindness. Not access to every room in my life simply because they knocked on my door. Just the presumption of goodness. Especially in a world gone mad. Because after nearly thirty years of living by Dawn's words, I've decided I'd rather occasionally discover that I trusted someone I shouldn't have, than spend my life distrusting people who never deserved my suspicion. Again: knot in my stomach. No way to live. Some people will disappoint you, while a few will betray you spectacularly. Most won't. And I don't want the worst people I've encountered influencing how I greet the next person who walks into my life. It's not fair to either of us. Why would I trust them? Because they haven't given me a reason not to. Yet. Share Leave a comment Shaun Proulx hostsThe Shaun Proulx Showheard weekends on SiriusXM Canada Talks. Subscribers can listen to it on this Substack as well. More:ShaunProulx.com ICYMI: Why We Are All Crying For Dolly Level 58 Whatever Happened To Being A Good Guest? Madonna Has Entered Her Own Multiverse AI On Your Face The Year Pride Made Me Cry The Future I Couldn't SeeWhat Really Matters I Woke Up To Sextortion Reaching For Peace Straight People Are Queering Their Relationships Why Some Straight Men Are Afraid Of Gay MenLooksmaxing: Straight Men Have Discovered Moisturizer And Are Calling It Sexual Strategy All My Good Ideas Start With A Leash Pedophiles? Groomers? Don't Look At The Queer Community, Look Up What I've Learned Interviewing Thousands Of People (And Why It Matters To You) The One Thing I Hate About Having A Pet (It Rhymes With Vet) Manitoba's Methy Problem We Fixed Sex. Now We're Breaking It Again The Death Of Grindr Gambling With Our Mental Health