If I Can’t Trust You, I Can’t Date You, End Of Story

Love means nothing if my partner is going to leave me high and dry when I need them most. If I can’t rely on my S.O. or take their words at face value, I’ll be gone by morning.

  1. Trust is the most important aspect of a relationship. Yeah, sure, we all want fireworks and excitement, but the person you’re dating needs to also be someone you can rely on. None of the other stuff is worth anything if I can’t trust my person not to cheat on me, stab me in the back or just leave me high and dry when I need them most. I can compromise on lots of other “perfect partner” stuff, but not this.
  2. I’ve been hurt before so I can spot the signs. Some might say I’m paranoid, but I’ve been with a few people who’ve cheated on me, so believe me when I say that I can spot a liar. I’m totally willing to bail if I see a clear indication that the person I’m with can’t be trusted. I’m not going to stick around just so I can get hurt again. That means that I sometimes need my dates to be extra honest and clear with me and I’m very open about that when I start dating someone. This is part of who I am now and I need to know I can trust the person I’m with.
  3. Little things are often an indication of big things. I always watch out for little lies, because if a person is willing to lie to you about things that don’t really matter that much, just think of what they’ll be willing to do when the stakes are higher. If someone’s in the habit of lying about small, insignificant stuff, it means I can’t trust them with the bigger stuff either. I lose interest pretty quickly then.
  4. There’s no point keeping an untrustworthy person around. Sorry, but if my partner doesn’t have my back, I’m going to ditch them and find someone who will. I want a real relationship and those just don’t work unless you see each other as part of the same team. I have BFFs to look after me and I’d rather be alone than with someone I can’t trust. I know they say you should keep your enemies closer, but I actually like surrounding myself with people I can actually rely on in my time of need. I definitely don’t need to be with someone who’d cheat on me and break my heart.
  5. If I can’t rely on my partner then what’s the point? They’re either there for me or they’re not. If they’re not, then I’m better off not factoring them into my plans at all, ever. There’s nothing worse than counting on someone and being let down. There are plenty of people in my life I can trust, so if I make plans with the person I’m dating and they ditch me to do something else, I’m only going to feel bad about ever having trusted them in the first place. I have zero tolerance for this sort of behavior – one strike and they’re out!
  6. Apologies don’t count—it’s behavior that matters. Some people apologize as a way of life and it enables them to keep acting like jerks. I learn my lessons fast and unless there’s a really good reason someone did what they did, an apology won’t mean a thing. I can either trust them or I can’t. I don’t need them to make excuses for me not being able to trust them. I need them to be a person of their word, or else.
  7. I’m only interested in people who back up talk with actions. Words mean nothing if they don’t translate into actions. It’s all very well for someone to swear their undying love and loyalty to me, but if I find them with someone else, that’s not going to work, is it? But it’s not just loyalty that needs to be backed up with actions. If I can’t trust them to be where they said they’ll be or do what they said they’ll do, our relationship isn’t going to work out.
  8. I don’t give second chances. Once I’m out, I’m out. Fool me once and all that. Yeah, I guess some people change, but I’ve found that if someone’s thoughtless enough to stand me up or dumb enough to cheat on me, things are never going to go my way no matter how hard I want them to, so now I just leave and put things behind me as fast as I can.
  9. Sometimes it takes me a while to trust someone and they need to be able to deal with that. My date can blame the people that came before them who did crappy things and made me lose my faith in humanity. I know they’re different and I should take them at face value, but that’s going to be something we need to work on together. The best way to do this is by showing me I can trust them from the start.
Writer, artist, intrepid traveler and lover of cats, cheese and techno music. Preferably not all at the same time.
close-link
close-link