(c) Christian Scheja - Trust
After many many years of relationships, of the personal and professional kind, I'd like to summarize.
All relationships are personal. Any other kind of a relationship - is actually not a classification of the kind/type of the relationship - but actually a classification of where the relationship take place (workplace, home, service provider, restaurant, municipality - you got the drift...)
It's all about chemistry. Everything else (skill, experience, love etc.) are either derivatives - or factors - but if there is not chemistry, the relationship will always be strained, and as a result, at the first (or second or third) opportunity - will flush the relationship down the drain. Chemistry is a pre-requisite. And we can't control chemistry. And that is bad news, since that means we can't impact our relationships. Read on - more bad news - but bigger good news, I hope.
And then there's trust. You see, without trust, people will never be open. And any relationship where people hold back, since they don't trust - is doomed to fail. And the problem is non-trivial - since if have chemistry, then there's a better opportunity to develop trust. But if you don't have chemistry, there's a good chance you won't have trust. And then, you're left without chemistry AND without trust. Now what do you do?
The good news?
I believe trust can be built.
The catch? Trust must be earned... You need to sacrifice something you care about, and you need to be the first. You need to make an unmistakable unilateral leap-of-faith, so that your counter-part in the relationship - the person who you hope will become your partner, will be able to choose to make their own leap-of-faith.
It's all about trust!
Good luck.
In the spirit, two great quotes on the subject:
Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair. (Unknown?)
I don't trust words. I trust actions.