*This blog post is based on my opinion thoughts and thinking.
We are all human, after all. Given the right person, we can trust each other to respect our boundaries and be honest with us, even when it’s not easy.
The most important thing is that you know when to trust someone and, more importantly, how to tell if you can trust someone.
With that in mind, here are five signs that can help you know for sure whether or not you can trust someone.
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1. They keep their promises.
It’s not a sign of weakness to trust someone when they have proven that they can be trusted.
If someone has proven trustworthy in the past and keeps promises now, you can count on them in the future.
Trust is not a contract but a mutual understanding that both parties work to keep each other’s best interests at heart.
And a sure sign of true trust is when someone acts the same way towards you as they would towards their loved ones.
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2. They don’t put their needs above yours.
One way to test for trustworthiness is to see if someone puts their needs above yours.
They treat you with respect, care about what you have to say, and make an effort to understand your point of view as well as theirs.
And if someone has your best interests at heart, they will choose to sacrifice a few of their own needs for yours.
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3. You can be yourself with them.
People who don’t trust others are usually not themselves around them and constantly try to keep up appearances.
But if you can be yourself around someone and not have to pretend, then he/she is probably trustworthy and you can trust him/her too.
If you feel like you can relax around someone, then you can trust them with your secrets and innermost thoughts.
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4. They’re not worried about losing you.
If someone cares about us, then he/she will want to be around us and care for us.
But if someone worries about losing us or what other people think of us, it’s a sign that they might not be truly trustworthy.
And they might not want to gain our trust by being honest and straightforward but instead prefer to test us first so that we can say goodbye if it doesn’t work out.
Spending time with a nice person doesn’t necessarily mean someone is trustworthy, however.
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5. They aren’t afraid of your opinions.
If someone is afraid to speak their mind or has a timid or submissive nature, then you probably can’t trust them fully.
But if someone is confident enough to express his/her feelings even though he/she might be criticized for it, then he/she might be trustworthy… or not.
There is no way to know for sure unless you spend a significant amount of time with that person.
Trustworthiness is a precious trait, and it’s always better to err on the side of caution.
But if you can’t trust the person you are dating or even living with, then it’s time to break up.
And if someone is constantly breaking your trust and lying about their actions, then it may be time to break up with them as well.
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Well, this is a blog post based on opinion, not a piece of professional advice.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: Andrea Tummons on Unsplash