Zero-Trust Dating
My friend Suzy* has a secret, something that none of the men she's dated know about her. She's a snooper. 'When I'm staying at a guy's and he pops out for milk or bread, I wait until the door closes, then I'm up out of bed and going through absolutely everything. I'll go through drawers and if he leaves his bag lying around, I'll go through that. If I can get hold of his wallet, I'll check that, too.' Suzy is a 28-year-old rational, fun-loving girl who just happens to mistrust men completely. And she's not alone. Most of her female friends think she's being perfectly reasonable. So while few women are a size zero when it comes to jeans and dresses, our trust levels have shrunk to almost nothing.
These days it seems natural, almost acceptable, to background-check a man before going on a date, have a little peek in your boy's e-mail inbox or even check out his text messages. Back in the day, Katie 'don't call me Jordan' Price took it a step further: if she wasn't sure about a number on Peter Andre's phone, she deleted it and replaced it with her own. 'Then, if he calls that number or sends an SMS, it goes straight to you,' she explained proudly. And in America, land of the paranoid singleton, women hire private investigators to run expensive checks on a potential boyfriend – before he's even bought the first glass of Pinot.
Surely us non-celeb South Africans aren't as extreme as that? Well, actually, we are. A straw poll of my friends revealed that loads of them are playing Cagney & Lacey. They're Internet searching to see if he's married, they're entering his name on dating websites to see if he's playing the cyber-field, they're reading letters and diaries, they're going through pockets and they're sniffing clothes for alien perfume. My favourite trick, though, belongs to my 30-year-old friend Jayne*. 'I look up where they live and work out their journey home from work. If it should take an hour, I'll call an hour after they say they're leaving and if there's no reply, I'll get suspicious.'
So what makes most women so skinny on trust? Suzy, the thorough go-througher, blames the man who broke her heart. 'I accidentally found a glove in our car – an old hippy glove – so I knew he was shagging the old hippy who was supposed to be "just a friend". That big heartbreak made me like this; that's when the lack of trust started. In my relationships now, during the first month, I look for signs of the ex and during the second, signs of future infidelity. So, really, I have about a week when I feel secure.'
Another friend, Holly*, 25, puts her lack of trust down to low self-esteem. 'The thing that makes me feel insecure is that they're not into me, not that they're cheating. I just don't believe they really like me. So if they say they're going out, I'll ring them at home anyway – to see if they've lied. I'm just waiting for it to go wrong.'
And Jayne admits she's a little in love with the theatrics of it all. 'It's high drama, isn't it? It's the eager anticipation of what you're going to find but also the horror if you do uncover something. It's actually quite exhilarating. And then there are the two everyday lumps who totally trust each other. Where's the excitement there? A healthy amount of mistrust and suspicion means you don't want to lose each other.'
It seems like the whole world is on a trust diet – except for me. I can safely say that, when it comes to trusting men, I'm a proud, happy size XXL. If they say they love me, I believe them. If they say they're working all weekend and that's why they can't see me, I accept that blindly. And if they don't return my calls, I think it's because they've lost the use of their fingers in some freak accident.
I'm so trusting that I don't even see the most obvious signs (a man chatted me up recently; the next day he asked me out and when I e-mailed my friends to tell them the news, they all replied: HE WAS WEARING A WEDDING RING! To which I responded, in classic size XXL style, that the ring might 'be a normal ring but just happens to fit that finger best'). I am, instinctively, a truster. I've been out with a man who disappeared for three months, then reappeared, and I believed him when he said it was because he 'couldn't cope with the strength of his feelings for me'. So I, of course, forgave him and he, of course, disappeared again. He'd been seeing his ex the whole time.
I then went out with a guy who had photos of a stunning 'friend' on his computer as a screen saver. A friend of his eventually revealed she was the unrequited love of his life and he'd been pining for her (and in contact with her) throughout our relationship.
And then there was the one who made me fall off the trust wagon. The man who moved in with a barmaid who 'needed a flatmate'. I believed him when he explained she really was just a friend and this was purely a makes-financial-sense living arrangement. That's when my snooping friends finally took me in hand. Fuelled by their advice, plus a few glasses of Jack Daniel's, I searched the flat for evidence when he was out. Eventually, l found (in the bin) a torn-up love letter.
Many hours and shots of Jack later, I'd manically Sellotaped the whole thing back together. In it, he said how his heart leapt whenever the sun shone on her hair (that crap line alone was enough reason to dump him) and how they'd be together forever. I left the letter on the floor, angled a flexi-lamp as a spotlight so it would be the first thing he saw when he opened the door and then collapsed on the bed in a drunken heap.
I'd found the evidence I'd been looking for but what good did it really do? I wasn't a natural size zero, and by the next relationship, I was a trusting fool again. Why? Well, I could bang on about privacy, morals, their rights (don't laugh), but it's not about that. For me (draw the sick bucket closer) it's all about romance and love. I want to fall for someone properly and you can't do that unless you open yourself up completely and optimistically: your new, shiny relationship is doomed if you're going to tarnish it with suspicion.
I want to experience the whole, natural journey of the relationship, unhindered by paranoia. Yes, we could end up driving off into the sunset, or we could break down at a service station outside Uitenhage, but it doesn't matter. Living it is what counts.
The size-zero approach takes away the joy of discovery. Maybe I'm being naïve but I reckon those gorgeous early-hours conversations when you get to know each other (how many sisters he has, where he had his first kiss, why his nickname is 'Floppy'...) might be somewhat ruined if a private investigator's report has already filled you in. I want a big, dreamy afternoon-movie kind of love. Following him onto the bus wearing a false moustache and hat sort of ruins the picture.
My suspicious sisters will tell you their ways 'stop you getting hurt' and are all about 'self-preservation'. But those arguments are as flimsy as his mistress's undies. If he's cheating, he's cheating, and you'll be devastated whenever, and however, you find out. Size-zero trust won't stop that; indeed, it'll just pile on your agonies. You won't be able to enjoy anything about the relationship; you'll never have that 'we're in love!' excitement; you'll be completely, tortuously wasting your time. You'll ruin any future liaison by not giving him/it a chance. And, worst of all, you could be destroying a potentially great love... Picture it: you read 'Meeting M for lunch' in his diary. You turn up at the restaurant with a slightly scary look in your eye and a kitchen knife in your hand. Do you really think he and 'M' (for 'Mother') are going to be impressed?
As my friend Amanda*, 25, a fellow truster, says, 'Ultimately, every girl wants to be loved by the guy she's with. If you check all his things, it makes you look like a psychopathic bitch. And men don't fall in love with psychopathic bitches.' You see? It's time to feed up on trust, ladies.
*Names have been changed