In walks a stranger…

A glance and I'm cold to my core. Spine blazing with the intuition that something simply isn't right. The face, the name, all the same, but the eyes are burning with something unknown; a daemon within them, a psychosis resurfaced? These are not the true colours I thought once shone through.

Pulse quickening, I double check all doors are locked. Not that doors can keep this out, but just the same there's the false sense of security provided by the 'thunking' deadbolts. Wondering why I looked back into those eyes, I dim the lights and retreat to a shadowy corner, questioning my sanity, intuition, gut, heart, head, logic all over again for the eight thousandth time.

"Little Pig, Little Pig, let me in!" "Not by the skin of my brainy brain brain!!" "Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll weave you the most beautiful, beguiling and fantastical farce you've ever heard that will have you begging me to come in over and over and over again!" "Why, yes, please Mr. Wolf, you are ever so dashing and charming, do come in and would you like a cup of tea?"

I know I'm not stupid, but am I really so gullible? How can I think I knew someone so intimately, so deeply, so far beyond the realm of heretofore known reality and not have seen that steely glint in their eyes? Cold-bloodedness has usurped joyous warmth. Was it there all along, or did I put it there? Did I blow those dark and evil clouds away with my presence only for them to return redoubled when I vanished?

I don't know. I have no right to know. But I'm haunted.

All I ever wanted was to know the whole truth, the unadulterated, bald-faced, staggering, make you weep with agony, and nothing but the truth. Instead I staggered into the most twisted web of lies ever conceived. Why is 'honesty' such a lonely word?

False Narratives

The flip side of my unflinching, innate bent for absolute honesty (discussed in an earlier post) is that my bullshit detector is completely busted. Hence, with the exception of children's obviously tall tales and the espousing of patent falsehoods, which I know unreservedly to be untrue, I cannot see through the murky waters of half truths, misconceptions, manipulations, false fronts, and general smoke and mirrors that pervades most adult interactions. Therefore, my default position (learned from being burned oh, so many times) with new people is to presume that most of what they say is complete and utter horse shit, until they manage to earn my trust.

When I am in the initial frame of mind with someone, their exaggerations, omissions and false statements don't really bother me. I expect it. I find it mildly amusing to marvel at how anyone can spin so many stories and why they might choose to do so. I don't take it personally and I don't place any import or credence on much of anything they say.

But the tide turns completely once I allow them through my carapace of disbelief. Once they are on the inside I am wholly splayed out and vulnerable to whatever false narratives they may weave. As I cannot discern the untrue subtleties of a carefully crafted story based on real events, no matter how implausible the embellishments I will swallow them whole. My trust in another becomes so complete and resolute, regardless of almost any evidence to the contrary, I continue to believe their every word until something definite shatters the illusion.

The effect of this treachery is akin to the unreservedly loved and trusted master of a faithful puppy kicking the shit out the poor animal when it bounds up for an outstretched treat. Gutted. Utter disbelief and disorientation. Terror. Horror. Confusion.

What to do with that kind of befuddlement? What to do with the love that disintegrates in such a perplexing moment? Where to turn in the disarray of swirling thoughts and pain when the trusted master is the one inflicting the pain?

Someone more skilled at decoding the typical spectrum of "truth" and "lies" in normal everyday adult human interactions would be less likely to suffer such a blow, I presume. A fully functioning B.S. detector would register the half-truths, the exaggerations, the subtle manipulations, and omissions and place them correctly in their designated boxes, allowing the relationship to progress at an appropriate level of trust. But without that critical tool at my disposal, everything gets lumped in its entirety either in the TRUTH or LIE pile. The entire relationship or friendship and everything that was ever said gets thrown in the same heap.

There's a small part of my brain that is capable of reasoning that every human interaction sits somewhere on a sliding scale between true and false. But the overwhelming majority of my brain screams its rejection of this possibility. The allowance of a spectrum of truth is a completely learned construct for me, not my default mode. Hence, when I feel someone I trust has been at all insincere with me, I sever the tie immediately and completely. I cannot bear the heart ache of having my deeply trusting nature taken advantage of. I hate that I am an easy mark for the unscrupulous deceiver who manages to make it through my front line. I am saddened that another round of broken trust undoubtedly means I close myself off even more to the possibility of new friendships around the corner because I cannot trust my judgement of character.