Time and time again, we take a leap of faith and let someone into our lives that we really want to trust but who ends up disappointing us in the end anyway. Trust can be a tricky thing, especially when it comes down to matters of the heart. We don’t want to build walls that are too high, but that doesn’t mean we should have implicit faith in people right away. In fact, here are 7 reasons you shouldn’t fully trust a guy until he really proves himself:
- Actions speak louder than words. Empty promises mean nothing if a person doesn’t follow through with keeping them. Pay more attention to what he does than what he says. It’s easy to tell you what you want to hear to get his own way, but if he actually cares about you, he’ll put those words into actions to make sure you feel cared about and secure with him.
- You have to protect your heart. We all know what heartache feels like. We dread going through it all over again, which is why you have to be cautious with who you give your heart to in the first place. You need to make sure that he’s all-in and that he’ll do whatever he can to make sure he never hurts you (at least not intentionally).
- You don’t know what he could be hiding. Find out about his life — his past relationships, his family, his friends, his goals for the future…  It’s good to know what you’re getting into before it’s too late. You may not know what he was like in his last relationship or if he’s still not over his ex. Make sure you find out all the juicy details before you put yourself at risk of getting hurt again. Sure, there’s no way you’ll know everything right away — it takes years to get to know every facet of someone — but you can get a pretty good idea of someone’s vibe if you pay close enough attention.
- You may not be the only woman in the picture. Tinder makes it all too easy to have another date with a quick swipe of your finger, and that’s just one option for finding love (or more likely a quick hookup). Because of this, it’s hard to be sure if he’s looking to play the field or actually wants a real relationship. He could be talking to multiple women at a time. If you only want a monogamous and serious relationship, you need to make that clear from the beginning. If you’re not, he might just make you one girl in a rotation of several — and if he does even after you’ve made your intentions clear, move on.
- Trust is earned, not a given. It’s good to feel that you aren’t too jaded to trust people, but that doesn’t mean you should give that trust away before it’s truly earned. Before letting your guard down too soon, don’t forget that you have to look out for number one, and that’s you. Don’t be so gullible with everything he tells you. Take things with a grain of salt until he’s put in the work to prove he’s worth it.
- Building a solid foundation takes time. Trusting someone doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process and can take weeks, months or even years to build and can be shattered in an instant. Without it, a relationship can’t thrive, but it’s also not something you can ramshackle together out of spare parts and hope for the best. In other words, you can’t rush the process. Trust between two people is assembled piece by piece over time, not handed over on the first date. Take your time and it just might pay off.
