I was thinking this morning about how much we distrust other people in this society. It’s sort of like the whole country has modified that rallying cry of the 60s generation from “don’t trust anyone over 30″ to just plain don’t trust anyone period. And assume that everyone’s going to rip you off. And hoard your possessions. Don’t even trust your friends and family. Love them, sure, they say, but don’t trust them. As if you can do one without the other. Do you think you can? Are there ever situations in which that’s necessary? Or does love require a certain amount of vulnerability?
It’s easy to fall into this line of thinking; it’s so pervasive. Two examples where it’s come up in my own life recently:
When my uncle and his family were in town last month because he was to undergo major surgery at the VA his estranged son, my cousin, came to see him. He didn’t have a lot of extra income for a hotel so I offered to let him stay with me. My aunt called me up to warn me about my cousin, whom I had never met, and said she didn’t want him to “take advantage of me”. Take advantage of me? By sleeping on my sofa? What did she imagine he’d go in and raid the refrigerator? And that I’d care if he did? Would he hog the bathroom? Use up too much electricity? What? I didn’t get it. He stayed a whopping three days, stocked my fridge with juice and iced tea, didn’t leave the bathroom a mess and left a bottle of wine on my table when he went home.
The other instance is this: I have been thinking about eventually getting a car again. I’ve lived car-free since 1997 and I feel really good about that. But it’s getting to be time where I feel like it’d be a good thing to have reliable long-distance transportation (what if I have a kid in the next few years?) and since I don’t live in a place with reliable, easy-access public transportation, that means having a car.
I’ve looked into alternative fuel vehicles and think I have decided on getting a diesel car. Diesel engines are between 20-40% more fuel efficient than gasoline engines and I also have the option of running it at least 50% of the time on biodiesel which is completely free of petroleum products. Biodiesel is the highly refined version of vegetable oil. Some of my friends have vehicles that run off straight vegetable oil (called SVO) but you have to modify the engine to do that and I’m not quite up to that yet. My boyfriend, who is also currently car-free, and I both agree that getting diesel car is the easiest, cheapest, most environmentally-friendly and accesible way to go if we are indeed going to give in to the car culture. We have decided to go 50-50 and try to buy a car together this winter.
I called my parents to tell them about this decision and my dad immediately latched on, not to the diesel part or the fuel efficiency part or the biodiesel part of the idea but to the “buy it together” part. Who’s name would be on the title? he asked. I hadn’t thought about it. Both, I guess I told him. He was adamently opposed to this idea. I could get screwed over by this guy. He could sell the car out from under me and take off with the money. People break up all the time you know… etc.etc.etc.
Now I understand my dad’s just looking out for his youngest daughter. That’s sweet. But there’s two things going on here. The first is sexism. He doesn’t think single women make good decisions. Nevermind the fact that I have been the first in my family to graduate from college, have gone to grad school, worked in a warzone, done long distance bicycle trips and travelled to third world countries by myself. I have lived on my own since I was 18. None of this matters. To my dad, I’m still in need of protection. That’s fine, my parents are of a different generation. They have some silly beliefs. Fortunately I’m an adult now and I can ignore them. 
The second reason he said what he did is life experience. He’s remembering when this actually happened with one of my sisters when she was in high school. [I'm not even going to point out the age and maturity differences between high schoolers and 30 year olds assuming it should be obvious.] It was a bad experience, I agree. Her boyfriend sold the car and kept the money. But come on, was her life permanently affected by it? No. Yes, it was. It made both her and my dad a lot more distrustful of people. I think that’s a lot more tragic than losing a few thousand dollars. Too often in life we tend to make mountains out of molehills. Sure, we have bad experiences in life. We get through them. We don’t cower in fear and distrust everyone around us because of them.
What it comes down to is a difference in values. I strongly disagree that money is more important than human relationships and needs to be “protected” at the expense of human relationships. Plainly and simply it is this: I care more about my relationship with my boyfriend, which is one built on trust, than I care about a car.
I would say this even if I didn’t have all the evidence in the world that my boyfriend is one of the most trust-worthy, honorable people I have ever met. But I do have that evidence, (though granted my parents have only met him briefly and can’t possibly know what a wonderful person he is). There is no evidence at all that he is going to skip out on me. Getting the car was my idea, not his. His reaction to what my dad’s said was just as I thought it’d be: no big deal. Put it in my name, he doesn’t care. He cares more about building a good relationship with my parents who are probably going to be his in-laws one day. Does that tell you something about my boyfriend?
Am I saying that people will never rip each other off? Of course not. It happens. What I’m saying is that I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter that much. If I give money to ten homeless people and nine do things with it that I wouldn’t approve of but that tenth person really turned their life around and went on to help others, it was worth it. It was all worth it. Because in the end, when you’re at the end of your life, are you going to look back and regret having trusted someone who didn’t deserve it or are you going to regret not having trusted someone who did? Think about it.
Now go out there and do something utterly crazy: assume the best about people and trust them!
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