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We sat around the fire in the main room of our cabin so Uncle John could continue our ‘lessons.’ He repeated the thoughts he’d shared with me this afternoon and then continued.
“Now that I’ve talked about these circles in generalities, I need to add a few more nuances. The first one is, trust relationships aren’t static. People can move from one circle to another from your perspective, sometimes instantaneously, based on something they’ve done or said, or something they’ve refrained from doing. That’s not necessarily good or bad; it just is.
“You will also find you trust some people implicitly in some areas, but not others. You may trust someone implicitly with everything except one subject, due to their own experience or perspective. That’s okay, but you do have to factor it into how you interact with that person in specific situations.
“A third point to always keep in mind is that trust requires some sort of action. It’s an active verb. You can’t earn trust by words alone, and you can’t give trust purely based on words. If you do, you’re basically not being responsible to yourself,” Uncle John explained.
Then Uncle John held up his clipboard and pointed to the bottom half of the sheet.
“Now, we’re going to talk about the bottom half. This is the area that can get dicey.
“This set of circles represents people whom you believe are not good for you or who you mistrust for whatever reason.
“At the center of that circle is anyone you mistrust completely. Stated another way, these are the people out to cause you harm. Sadly, some people will have enemies who fall into that category,” Uncle John said and looked at me.
“I’ll bet you can think of people you seriously mistrust off the top of your head,” he said.
I gave a snort at that. As soon as he said it, I’d thought of Cal, Mike Herndon, Brandon, and Tommy Cox. Then I added Baby Dick, Brad Hope, Bill Rogers, and the two feminazis. I already had a rather long list for someone my age.
“In the next circle out from the center is another group of people. These are people who don’t necessarily have any malice towards you. However, if something hurts you but helps them, they’re all for it, and they’re indifferent to any harm it causes you. These people seem nice enough. But you can count on them to throw you under a bus at the drop of a hat if they decide it’s beneficial for them to do so.”
This one I had to chew on a bit. The Ford Models people certainly fit this category. At one point, I thought my movie agent, Saul, would fit in this circle. Now, I wasn’t so sure; the jury was still out on him.
“David, do you remember why you don’t have to put a lid on a bucket of crabs?” Uncle John asked.
“Yeah, it’s because if one crab looks like it’s going to succeed in climbing out, the others will pull it back down.
“When you told me about the crab bucket, I looked it up on the Internet. I had to see if you were telling me a story since I didn’t have a bucket of crabs lying around. They call it ‘crab mentality’: ‘if I can’t have it, neither can you.’
“Uncle John warned me that when I made changes to my life to make it better, there would be friends who would try to talk me out of it. When I was in middle school, I started to date Jan Duke, who was the head cheerleader at the time. My best friends all told me I shouldn’t because I was reaching too far,” I said.
“You dated Yuri’s girlfriend?” Phil asked.
“For like three minutes, but that’s not the point. The point is that if I’d listened, I might have been happier a few weeks later when she broke up with me. But in the long run, it would have held me back. Uncle John gave me the confidence not to listen to all the people who tell me I can’t do something. What it showed me was they weren’t really trying to hold me back because of me, they were holding me back because of them. They didn’t want me to change because they liked me the way I was. The sad part was that, at the time, they were my best friends, so I ‘knew’ they had my best interests at heart.
“A better example would be the friends I had in middle school who did drugs and drank. After Lily almost died, I was sent to Uncle John’s farm for the summer. I made a choice that I wasn’t going to drink or do drugs anymore. But I’d bet you if I asked any of them if I’d be better off not drinking or doing drugs, they would’ve said ‘no.’ They would tell me to keep drinking and getting high, that there was nothing to worry about. I no longer hang out with any of them because, from their perspective, I’m too straight.
“Uncle John explained that people might not accept that I would be making changes in my life. They would try to pull me back to the way I was before. If I still did drugs and drank, I would likely have that same set of friends.
“Well, I don’t have friends like that anymore. I’ve tried to surround myself with people who want me to succeed,” I finished.
“Exactly,” Uncle John said. “You finally became aware of that. Your awareness helped you make better decisions as to who you wanted to have in your life. You didn’t let their opinions influence the decisions you make any more.”
I nodded, thinking that in a lot of ways, this also described my relationships with Alan and Tami. Tami was more open to how I’d changed. Still, there were times when she said the right words, but her actions told me she didn’t really want me ‘growing up.’
“In the outermost of that second set of circles are people who give you a bad vibe,” Uncle John said, pointing at the paper. “For David’s purposes, they may wind up being what he sees as potential users. These are people who want to get to know David solely to get something out of him, or out of the relationship, whether that harms David or not. I know David’s already run into that kind of situation.”
Oh, God, had I! I remembered the plane trip where the fighter had sat next to me and tried to rob me. He’d given me a bad vibe as soon as he started talking to me.
I also remembered the party at State where a girl had approached me, and I’d had that bad feeling again. She’d tried to blackmail me into giving her some kind of sensationalistic interview by threatening to make up some bad stuff about me if I didn’t cave.
A more recent example was the girl in Cuba who turned out to be a highly paid escort when all was said and done. I probably should have cut her off as soon as I got that bad vibe. What made me happy was I did recognize what was going on, so I wasn’t completely blindsided. Paying her off, in the end, was, more than anything else, a decision based on my having seen how people in Cuba had to live.
What Uncle John said next didn’t help all that much.
“What you have to keep in mind is, a lot of these bad vibes are instinctive. Even then, you should trust your instincts until you absolutely know your instincts are wrong.”
Now that was a bit confusing. Tami had always told me my first instinct in responding to people was usually wrong, and history had borne her out. So how could I trust my instincts? A little more thought brought clarity. While my instinctive responses were usually wrong, it seemed to me that my instincts in evaluating people were more reliable.
That recognition made me snort to myself again. I realized those instincts were getting honed rapidly by the school of fame and hard knocks. I just hoped they kept getting better.
“Now look at the area outside the circles in the bottom half. Notice that area is separated from the top half by a line?”
When we nodded, he continued.
“Think of this area as potentially hostile territory. For example, at an away football game, fans might be hostile to you, or they might not be. The point is the possibility exists. Whenever you’re in that situation, it’s perfectly okay to be friendly and outgoing. But you still will want to keep your guard up a bit more, just because everything can turn south quickly,” Uncle John said, and then looked at me.