Friday 3rd October 2025

My friend did something I find morally reprehensible to someone else and it got me thinking that I have some serious trust issues.

I know that if she ever did that to me then I would blow up the whole friendship or at least find it very hard not to.

If a person does one bad thing and makes a mistake and admits their mistake, I still find it really fucking hard to forgive them.

I just completely catastrophise in my head, I get really afraid that people are doing mean shit on purpose and are just trying to fuck with me. I'm scared that a person I liked and otherwise trusted is secretly out to fuck all my shit up for asshole reasons.

I know the more people I meet the more evidence I have that most people are not malicious but I still have to fight this undercurrent of what if they are like my family. What if they are all like my family and just good at hiding it.

So when I do have evidence that people are going out of their way to fuck with me  I cannot forgive it. Because they are confirming my paranoia.

If you have met people who go out of their way to ruin other people's lives for really dumb reasons, it's really hard not to worry that everyone you meet might have a streak of that within them. If you know someone with a charming facade and if you have watched people be repeatedly fooled by it, it can be hard not to mistake mere kindness for the lure that sets you on a path to ruination.

Most kind people are actually kind though. 

And sometimes people really do just make a mistake. And I am not judge jury and executioner. 

There isn't a lot of room for forgiveness, there's not a lot of room for genuine error. If somebody does something shitty they might actually have just had a fuck up and are not the devil incarnate. 

I have a hard time forgiving myself for the most minor of infractions. It's honestly harder to forgive other people for major fuckups.

On the one hand, I believe in restorative rather than punitive justice. I believe that people should not be reduced to their infractions, the worst things they have done. I believe that even when people have done wrong it is necessary, imperative that they are able to have another chance.

So it's weird to hold that belief and also have a 1 strike and you're out attitude to my interpersonal relationships.

The times when I have been forgiving I have only regretted that I let someone treat me like shit repeatedly.

I don't trust people easily and my trust is remarkably fragile.

I don't recognise or express my negative emotions easily and I convict people in my head without actually giving them a chance to defend themselves.

Maybe it's time for me to soften. Maybe it's time for me to be a little bit more tolerant of other people's failure. Maybe it's time for me to have a little more wiggle room, a little more flexibility.

Perhaps I will finally learn some grace. Perhaps I will learn to be more generous. Perhaps I will learn to forgive.

Watching: Interview with a Vampire

Reading: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes