I Have Trust Issues Because Too Many Guys Have Lying Issues

I don’t know why it’s so hard for so many guys to just say what they’re really thinking. Maybe it’s just because I’m brutally honest, but it blows my mind that I’m having such a hard time finding a guy who doesn’t lie to me about everything from where he is to what he wants with me to who that girl on his phone is. I don’t try to be weird and insecure about the people I date, but this is why I have such a hard time trusting guys nowadays:

  1. I haven’t always been this way. I used to be someone who gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. I trusted people until they gave me a reason not to, and even if they betrayed that trust, I was still able to bounce back pretty quickly. But after getting screwed over so many times, the opposite is now true. It took a lot to break that part of me, but now, I doubt there’s any hope at all of fixing it.
  2. Every time I put my faith in a guy’s words, he throws it in my face. I try to give every guy a chance to not be lumped into the ever-growing group of liars I’ve dated, but each time I do, I end up getting hurt. I try to be the type of person I’d want to date, but instead of realizing that, the men I talk to always end up taking advantage of my trusting nature.
  3. I know I’m not the only one who’s gone through this. Instead of making me feel better, that actually makes me feel worse. It sucks that there are so many jerks out there that just about every woman you’ll ever meet can tell you a story about how she lost her trust in men after being lied to so many times. It seems like this isn’t just bad luck — it’s an epidemic. I guess the search for an honest man isn’t going to stop any time soon.
  4. Is it really so hard to just be honest? I’m a pretty straightforward person myself, so I know firsthand that it’s not that difficult to just say what you mean and be direct about your intentions with someone. But apparently, the type of guys I attract don’t think the same way. Instead, they choose to make things complicated by lying to me. I always thought it was a lot harder to keep your fake story straight than it was to just tell the truth from the start, but that mentality isn’t as common as I once believed.
  5. It’s not that I don’t try to pick honest men. With the number of scumbags I’ve dated, you’d think that my Tinder profile said, “Ability to lie to my face is a huge plus.” In reality, though, I try to do just the opposite. I spend a lot of time and effort trying to make sure that the guy I’m seeing ISN’T a lying sack of garbage, so it makes it that much worse when it inevitably turns out that he is. Clearly I’m doing something wrong; I just can’t figure out what.
  6. If not all guys are like this, I wish the good ones would come forward. I hate it when guys describe all women with a stupid blanket statement, so I try to avoid doing the same to them. I really want to believe that I’ve just encountered a particularly rotten bunch of apples, but it’s hard to be optimistic when you can’t seem to catch a break. Deep down, I know that not all guys are dishonest douchecanoes, but my experiences are making me want to listen to that little voice in my head telling me that maybe they really are.
  7. I can’t even trust my own BS detector anymore. I used to think I was so good at figuring out when I was being lied to. I knew all the signs to look for, all the body language, all the suspicious phrases. So what am I supposed to think when everything I thought I knew fails me in my relationships? Clearly, my BS radar is broken, but I have no idea how to fix it. Until I do, I know I’m going to have to keep dealing with this same crap over and over again.
  8. I thought we were all old enough to stop playing these games. I expected this crap when I was eighteen, and even when I was nineteen and twenty, I was willing to accept that guys my age just might be a little immature. But years later, I’m still dealing with the same stuff. I had childish habits that I grew out of with time and experience, but for some reason, the guys I date seem like they’re still stuck in high school when it comes to their shady ways. Does this ever stop, or am I still going to have to suffer through this nonsense when I’m a bitter 80-year-old with fifty cats?
  9. I’m starting to think something about me attracts liars. Is it the color of my hair? The way I talk? My general aura? Given how many of my friends seem to have found sincere, kind men to spend time with, I have to wonder if I’m the one at fault for all the liars I’ve swapped spit with. Granted, I have no idea what it is about me that might cause this strange phenomenon, but I’d sure love to find out so I could change it.
  10. This untrusting person isn’t who I really am. The worst part about all this is that it’s turned me into someone I’m not. I have a big heart, and I try to leave it open for people I care about. As I get involved with more and more sketchy dudes, though, I can feel that part of me closing up. I really don’t want to lose the side of me that hasn’t been destroyed by lousy people, but I think that trusting, innocent girl is long gone.
Averi is a word nerd and Brazilian jiu jitsu brown belt. She's also a TEFL/TESOL-certified ESL teacher and an equine enthusiast. Originally from Pennsylvania, she lived in Costa Rica for a while before moving to Australia. In addition to her work as a writer and editor for Bolde, she also has bylines with Little Things and regularly writes for Jiu-Jitsu Times.

You can follow Averi on Instagram @bjjaveri or on Twitter under the same handle.
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