Dear Anita,

You are correct in your assessment of this case. But I’ve gained my trust issues from a few backstabbing erstwhile friends as well. Many people whom I blindly trusted went ahead and betrayed me. It was all high school drama so I got over it pretty soon but these things did have an impact. One after another these so called friends kept revealing their true colours. I had quite a few experiences with such people. Over a period of time I realised that most people are only loyal when they require help or think that you may be of assistance to them in the future. It could be that my choice of friends was probably wrong for some time. I would open up emotionally pretty soon, until I learnt not to. Then practicality took over me which taught me to trust no one but myself. I distanced myself from drama creators and saw the visible difference. Later, I was fortunate enough to find a few others like me.

I’ve seen my sister’s previous relationship fail and a close friend of mines too, who went into depression after that. All of my past experiences and seeing my sister’s and friend’s relationships fail contributed hugely to how I feel now. So overall, I do mostly shut down when it comes to men but also when it comes to selecting friends. Basically any relation where I would be vulnerable, makes me sceptical. But now that I have sorted out the friends issue by limiting the people I open up to, it’s not an issue anymore. That’s how I went from school popular girl to the selectively-associates-with-people girl. It doesn’t bother me if I don’t have a bunch of friends anymore. I have quality people in my life.