on trust and manipulation
Back in early high school, I knew a girl - we were kinda friends by virtue of having multiple friends in common, but in hindsight, she never much liked me - who had this purebred dog. Iād met him at her place, and he wasnāt desexed, which was pretty unusual in my experience, so it stuck in the memory. And one day, as we were walking across the playground, this girl - Iāll call her Felice - said to me,Ā āHey, so weāre going to start using my dog as a stud.ā And Iām like, Oh? And sheās like,Ā āYeah, weāve been talking to breeders, weāre going to get to see his puppies and everything,ā and I made interested noises because that actually sounded pretty interesting, and she went on a little bit more about how it would all work -
And then, out of nowhere, she swapped this sly look with another girl, burst out laughing and exclaimed, āGod, youāre so gullible. I literally just made that up. Youāll believe anything!ā
And I was just. Dumbfounded. Because I was standing there, staring at them, and they were laughing like I was an idiot, like theyād pulled this massive trick on me, and all I could think, apart from why the fuck they felt moved to do this in the first place, was that neither of them knew what gullible means. Like, literally nothing in that story was implausible! I knew she had an undesexed, male, purebred dog! It made total sense that he be used for a stud! And it wasnāt like I was getting this information from a second party - the person who actually owned the dog was telling me herself! And I felt so immensely frustrated, because they both walked off before I could figure out how to articulate that gullible means taking something unlikely or impossible at face value, whereas Felice had told me a very plausible lie, and while the end result in both cases is that the believer is tricked, the difference was that I wasnāt actually being stupid. Rather, Felice had manipulated the fact that she occupied a position of relative social trust - meaning, I didnāt have any reason to expect her to lie to me - to try and make me feel stupid.
Which, thinking back, was kind of par for the course with Felice. On another occasion, as our group was walking from Point A to Point B, I felt a tugging jostle on my school bag. I didnāt turn around, because I knew my friends were behind me, and my bag was often half-zipped - I figured someone was just shoving something back in that had fallen out, or had grabbed it in passing as they horsed around. Instead, Felice steps up beside me, grinning, and hands me my wallet, which sheād just pulled out, and tells me how oblivious I was for not noticing that sheād been rifling my bag, and how I ought to pay more attention. This was not done playfully: the clear intent, again, was to make me feel stupid for trusting that my friends - which, in that context, included her - werenāt going to fuck with me. As before, I couldnāt explain this to her, and she walked on, pleased with herself, before I could try.
The worst time, though, was when I came back from the canteen at lunch one day, and Felice, again backed up by another girl, told me that my dad had showed up on campus looking for me. By this time, youād think Iād have cottoned on to her particular way of fucking with me, but I hadnāt, and my dad worked close enough to the school that he really couldāve stopped in. So I believed her, a strange little lurch in my stomach that I couldnāt quite place, and asked where he was. She said heād gone looking for me elsewhere, at another building where we sometimes sat, and so I hurried off to look for him, feeling more and more anxious as I wondered why he might be there.
I was halfway across campus before I let myself remember that my mother was in hospital.
I felt physically sick. My pulse went through the roof; I couldnāt think of a reason why my dad would be at school looking for me that didnāt mean something terrible had happened to my mother, that her surgery had gone wrong, that she was sick or hurt or dying. And when my dad wasnāt where sheād said he would be, I hurried back to Felice - who was now sitting with half our mutual group of friends - only to be met with laughter. She called me gullible again, and that time, I snapped. I chased her down and punched her, and the friends whoād only just arrived, who didnāt know what had happened or why I was reacting like that, instantly took her side. Noises were made about telling the rest of our friends what Iād done, and I didnāt want them to hear Feliceās version first, so I ran off to the library, where I knew they were, to tell them first.
I walked into the library. I found our other friends. I was shaky and red-faced, and they asked me what had happened. I told them what Felice had done, that Iād hit her for it, that my mother was in hospital for an operation - something Iād mentioned in passing over the previous week; multiple people nodded in recognition - and how Iād thought Feliceās lie meant that something bad had happened. And then I burst into tears, something I almost never did, because it wasnāt until I said it out loud that I realised how genuinely frightened Iād been. I sat down at the table and cried, and a girl - Iāll call her Laurel - who Iād never really been close to - who was, in fact, much better friends with Felice than with me - put her arm around my shoulders and hugged me, volubly furious on my behalf.
And then the other girls showed up, and Laurel said, with that particular vicious sincerity that only twelve-year-olds can really muster, āPrepare to die, Felice,ā and I almost wanted to laugh, but didnāt. A girl who was a close friend, whoād come in with Felice, took her side, outraged that Iād punched someone, until Laurel spoke up about my mother being in hospital, and everyone went really quiet. Which was when I remembered, also belatedly, that Laurelās own mother was dead; had died of cancer several years previously, which explained why she of all people was so angry. I have a vivid memory of the look on Feliceās face, how she tried to play it off - she said she hadnāt known about my mother, I pointed out that Iād mentioned it multiple times at lunch that week, and she lost all high ground with everyone.Ā Ā Ā
Felice never played a trick on me again.
Eighteen years later, I still think about these incidents, not because Iām bearing some outdated grudge, but because theyāre a good example of three important principles: one, that even with seemingly benign pranks, thereās a difference between acting with friendly or malicious intent; two, that ignorance of context can have a profound effect on the outcome regardless of what you meant; and three, that getting hurt by people who abuse your trust doesnāt make you gullible - it means youāre being betrayed.Ā
And I feel like this is information worth sharing. Ā
