"I trust everyone. I just don't trust the devil inside them." - The Italian Job
The million dollar question is: how can we trust someone? There is no law to determine the proportion of trust or the probability of another human being not betraying us. Let alone trusting anyone else, do we trust ourselves? Aren’t we all monsters, one way or another?
Trust is the delicate thread that binds any relationship together. Without it, relationships fall apart. It is a conundrum: to trust or not to trust. Most of the time, we tend to calculate the risks associated with trusting a certain person. Even after our results turn out negative, we go ahead and take the risk of ignoring the devil inside them.
Here I am attempting to paint a picture of two different scenarios.
For the past four years, two coworkers, one older man and one younger woman, have worked together. He used to treat her like a child, like a sister. After years of working together on the same team, on the same floor, and in the same department, he does this. He touches her on her waist without consent.
Firstly, she is a 25-year-old female in an official environment, not a child. Second, it is not appropriate to touch children if you are not their parents. She was taken back, shocked, and left blank. She was unable to process what had just happened. She just came out of the cabin and sat on her chair. She reflected on all the times she had been alone with him. He had dropped her off at home once. She trusted him like she would trust an older brother. She thinks of all the other married men, are they all thinking the same thing? Are all of their minds corrupted? Can she go with any of them in the same lift again? Was it her mistake to have trusted him in the first place?
She complains to her boss, who tells her not to do anything right now. He hasn’t done anything yet, right? We will see if he does anything else, and we can complain about him. She asks what he means by anything else. Is this not enough? What should I expect more than this?
That day, she saw the devil inside a person who claimed to be an older brother and also inside her boss, who claimed to be her friend. The worst part is that they do not even realize they are wrong.
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We tend to watch so many movies in so many genres and in so many different languages. We read so many romantic novels. These can sometimes come back and bite you. All the love stories portray perfect gentlemen and reasonable people. All truths have been destroyed by the eyes.
As science disciples, let us assume “MF” is the man and “BH” is the woman.
MF and BH meet at a function. MF looks at BH, and BH looks at MF. They exchange smiles, pleasantries, and coy looks. He looks deep into her eyes, like he is looking into her soul. She feels like her bare wound is visible to him, and he can heal her. It feels like he can see her, her insecurities, her fears, and her pain. All of this she discovers with a single glance. They make one eye contact, which they hold for almost 30 seconds, and hold it as they walk away from each other.
The reality is not often that poetic. MF is not really doing that. He cannot see her. He does not possess magical powers to see through a person or her soul with a glance. His gaze cannot penetrate her thick skin and reach her heart. Yes, he can scan her breasts even if she is dressed in ten different outfits. All he is seeing is an opportunity. Yes, he does have skills. All the while he is holding contact, he is devising a plan and working on his own capabilities. Can he convince her or not?
If she is convinced, he will be all ears. BH will talk, and MF will listen. He will open his mouth only to compliment her. She wonders if it is really possible that another person can be so selfless as to listen to her talk. There will be a typical “babu apne khana khaya?” scenes, calling every two hours, non-stop texts. We can call it situationship or casual relationship. As Urooj Ashfak, a comedian, describes causal relationships as one person being casual (usually MF) and the other being in a relationship (usually BH).
Now, after sex, MF stops listening. He thinks his duties are done, and he has got his reward. Now MF thinks BH is too much work, too complicated. He wants to break up but does not want to be the asshole, so he does things to annoy BH like ignoring, “being busy” or not trying to hide his true self. BH plays cool because she cannot let MF know about her feelings. She pretends she is not affected.
BH eventually realises MF is trying to ghost her, and she protects her dignity by breaking up with him. MF pretends to be affected but leaves happily. BH hides her tears, but funnily enough, she thinks poetically,
There goes my future child’s father.
There goes my opportunity to be validated.
Here I descend back to my lonely life, which was not sad until MF came and rattled it.
There goes my opportunity to write happy articles for a change.
Oh! the tears I am going to waste on him.
And the drinks I need to keep myself hydrated after all the crying.
So many things to catch up on that I neglected this month while focusing on him.
Here, frankly, nobody is the culprit. MF did not promise BH anything. Lying through one’s eyes is not considered wrong, is it? Morally maybe.
We still trust. We are humans, and as Belinda from Fleabag says, “People are all we’ve got.” We claim to have trust issues, but we go on blind dates or share our pain with a new friend. We trust pilots with our lives on a flight. We rely on an auto wala at 2 a.m. to deliver us to our destination. We study for an exam and trust God or luck to take care of the rest. We are trusting Russia not to use nuclear weapons, but it seems Russia is soon going to break that trust. We trust China to be civil, have some human traits, and not kill soldiers on our border, but they are already in the process of breaking that trust. We are trusting artificial intelligence not to take over all the jobs of mankind, which it is going to break or better to say humans are going to break it. We make someone our idol and trust them to be good people.
It is said that Life runs on three things: Truth, Love, and Trust.
