Trust and Respect
Trust and respect are the two fundamental elements of any friendship or relationship. You can get by without trust, as long as the other person knows that and accepts it. Respect is a whole different thing. If you don't respect someone, you can't spend time with that person. It just won't work.Rob is a case in point. A month ago, my girlfriend could pole dance and grind her booty into his face. They could spend hours together, talking. Hell, they could even sleep together downstairs while I was asleep upstairs. This was all fine because I trusted them both absolutely, and I knew 100% that nothing would ever happen between the two of them.
Then I was proven wrong.
I saw Rob today. We even went for a drink. That's when I realised that you can no longer continue a friendship with someone you no longer trust or respect.
Don't get me wrong, we can still enjoy a drink together, but I can no longer look at him in the same light. We're now mere acquaintances. Acquaintances who've been to hell and back with each other, and come through trials the like of which many friendships have never seen, but acquaintances nonetheless. He can't understand this. He feels that our friendship should be completely unaffected.
I put it to him this way: Does he seriously believe that I'm ever going to let a girlfriend of mine pole dance in front of him again? Does he believe I'm ever going to let him and a girlfriend of mine talk about me, alone, for hours at a time? Does he actually honestly believe I'll ever give him the opportunity to spend a night with a girl I'm seeing again, without any hint of suspicion on my part? Those are all things that happened before we split up and he started shagging my missus. Those are all things that will never happen again.
Sure, we can still be friendly. We can still drink together, even go out together. We can never be the same as we were. That's long gone, and it wasn't me who broke it.
posted by SingleGuy @ 7:07 pm
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