On When To Trust

[lb_lee]

 More notes from Staci Haines's Healing Sex, specifically on how to know when to trust someone for something. There are three things to check:

1. Their competence. Can they do the thing you want to trust them to do?

2. Consistency. DO they do the thing you want to trust them to do? Regularly and reliably?

3. Congruence between word and action. Do they do what they say they will?

Comments

[squirrelitude]

That's interesting, especially consistency. So that's about whether the thing they say they'll do would be a break from past behavior, or in line with it?

The way I've thought about trust in the past has been with respect to it meaning two different things -- trust that someone would try, and trust that they would succeed. The latter is more or less competence, and the former is more in line with how I usually interpret "trust" or "trustworthiness" (are they generally a good person, do they have my interests in mind, etc.) But congruence sort of bridges those two. Someone might intend to do a thing, and maybe even be competent at it, but be bad at followthrough...

[lb_lee]

Yeah, in this case, it's specifically "trust" in the means of romantic or sexual relationships, and for folks from abusive backgrounds who, say, may not realize that trusting someone who steals your stuff is a bad idea.

For me, trust is always super-contingent on, "trust to do WHAT?"