By Riggs
Date: 3 October 2000

They Would Never

Human beings have the unique distinction of being the only species with the ability to fool itself. Fooling others is simple, and all members of the animal kingdom engage in forms of deceit whether it is to secure themselves a meal or to escape a predator, but human beings manage ever so successfully to fool and deceive themselves on an alarmingly regular basis. People who profess their love for partners they barely know, or even worse, people who have relationships which are still relatively short and say criminally naďve things like “he/she would never cheat on me” are to my way of thinking the most amazingly competent self deceivers on gods green earth. How the hell do you know if she would cheat on you or not. That is the very point. The reason people are so hurt when someone does cheat on them is because it is a violation of trust.

If you trust implicitly then you are destined for a major kick the in the guts when you’re trust turns out to have been directed towards someone who didn’t deserve it. Saying that you trust someone totally if you do not know them inside and out  not only makes you appear naďve it also makes you appear foolish. The sad truth in life is that the only person you can count on 100% of the time is yourself. There are way to many broken hearts and shattered dreams out there for people to convince themselves otherwise. Although given out amazing talent for self-deception we will probably make a pretty good fist of doing just that. The truth of the matter is that nobody ever reveals every single part of themselves. They might go close, but everyone has a secret that nobody else in the world knows. I think Billy Joel said it best.  

Though we share so many secrets
There are some we never tell
Why were you so surprised that you never saw the stranger?
Did you ever let your lover see the stranger in yourself?

I’d rather be a chimpanzee….

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