The Truth About Trust

Every day, life presents us with a new series of challenges. As students, we must find the perfect balance between school, work and our social lives, and sometimes this can be difficult to manage. We will have our ups and downs, our highs and lows, but we recognize that everything in our lives is subject to change.

As someone who adjusted very well to college life in the first year, I can honestly say that I didn’t run into many problems until recently. With a successful freshman year behind me, my love affair with school remained strong until early in the fall semester of sophomore year, when reality began to kick in. Suddenly I was forced to question many of the personal decisions I had made, including several regarding trust, and I realized that life really isn’t all roses.

In fact, the issue of trust has been an important one for me. As someone who tries to see the good in everyone, I hate to think that people would ever take advantage of that optimism, or that seemingly strong friendships could dissolve quickly because of that. But as I’ve begun to face some more difficult situations at school, I’ve realized that trust isn’t something you can give away so quickly, even if you want to.

It’s a trickier situation in college than in high school because relationships have to accelerate much faster here than anywhere else. As a university student on your own, it makes sense that you’d want to find your group of friends early on — it gets lonely without a support network! Because of this, you get to know the people you’ve befriended much faster than you would typically get to know someone you met on the street. People dive into best-friendships, bromances and relationships all too suddenly because of this need to avoid loneliness.

However, when forming those bonds, it’s important to slow down the process as much as you can. You can’t tell a stranger your innermost thoughts and dreams; you have to let the friendship develop further before you can even begin to tell your life story. People aren’t always who they say they are, and it may take you months to figure that out.

I’m not saying that you need to be completely paranoid and skeptical, but just be aware that not everyone will prove to be the great friend or significant other you hoped they might become, and don’t start to really confide in those people until you’ve taken the time to get to know their personalities and tendencies.

Trust is only valuable when deserved. — Tweet this!