Recommendation for fostering a trustworthy inner circle
June 5, 2023 12:35 PM Subscribe
How do you invest in relationships? How do you create a trustworthy inner circle? Is having a trustworthy inner circle at the end of the day a matter of sheer luck? I am looking for insights and/or book recommendations on these questions.
Recently I have been thinking about the most frightening part of being old — that stage in life when one loses one’s eyesight, hearing, mobility — and has to rely on others. The option of pulling oneself by the bootstraps is impossible in that universe. I thought that if one had money for retirement, it only solves 50% of the problem. The other 50% is resolved by having a trustworthy inner circle.
Here’s the nightmare scenario: At retirement, Person A has millions in the bank AND Person B has nearly nothing. Both have dementia. Neither has a trustworthy circle of friends or relatives. Both are potential targets for serious abuse. So money hardly matters in this case.
I am likely to be an elder orphan, among many of my generation who for whatever reason did not have children, and am trying to figure out what seems impossible at the moment. How do I find young friends? How do I find trustworthy young friends? There is no guarantee of course for any of it. Even the inner circle can collapse. Younger people do die before older ones. I want to do what I can and figure out trust in connections. How do you build it? How do you check if someone is trustworthy? I am looking for book recommendations.
p.s. I posted on this topic earlier, but for some reason I still do not see my post on.
Recently I have been thinking about the most frightening part of being old — that stage in life when one loses one’s eyesight, hearing, mobility — and has to rely on others. The option of pulling oneself by the bootstraps is impossible in that universe. I thought that if one had money for retirement, it only solves 50% of the problem. The other 50% is resolved by having a trustworthy inner circle.
Here’s the nightmare scenario: At retirement, Person A has millions in the bank AND Person B has nearly nothing. Both have dementia. Neither has a trustworthy circle of friends or relatives. Both are potential targets for serious abuse. So money hardly matters in this case.
I am likely to be an elder orphan, among many of my generation who for whatever reason did not have children, and am trying to figure out what seems impossible at the moment. How do I find young friends? How do I find trustworthy young friends? There is no guarantee of course for any of it. Even the inner circle can collapse. Younger people do die before older ones. I want to do what I can and figure out trust in connections. How do you build it? How do you check if someone is trustworthy? I am looking for book recommendations.
p.s. I posted on this topic earlier, but for some reason I still do not see my post on.
Response by poster: @metahawk, thanks for the book recommendation and for the rest of it. I hope the book will help.
posted by Kitty_Levin at 1:27 PM on June 5, 2023
posted by Kitty_Levin at 1:27 PM on June 5, 2023
To some degree, there are no guarantees in life and this is one of them. Even elders with 4 loving children may find that family support is not available to the degree they were hoping when it comes time. Often eldercare decisions are between two bad choices and even the long-time spouse struggles to do what is best for the aging person.
I think there are a few practical things you can do as someone who is likely to be an elder orphan:
1) Investigate Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC). In these communities you pay a large upfront fee (mortgage-like amounts) as well as monthly rent. In exchange, they commit to providing you progressively increasing care as your needs change. They typically do not accept folks who need heavy nursing care, and the fees are a sort of insurance, so you want to get involved before it is a need.
2) Set an Advanced Directive through your health system.
3) Work with a lawyer to establish a trust, to make it more difficult to fall for a romance or other scam.
If you are truly interested in forming relationships outside of a contractual nature as outlined above, you need to invest many years for an uncertain payoff. Typically a church or community center has compassionate people of mixed ages, but if I was being cynical I'd say queer spaces are often very focused on building chosen family and might be a great place to get involved.
posted by Narrow Harbor at 2:31 PM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think there are a few practical things you can do as someone who is likely to be an elder orphan:
1) Investigate Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC). In these communities you pay a large upfront fee (mortgage-like amounts) as well as monthly rent. In exchange, they commit to providing you progressively increasing care as your needs change. They typically do not accept folks who need heavy nursing care, and the fees are a sort of insurance, so you want to get involved before it is a need.
2) Set an Advanced Directive through your health system.
3) Work with a lawyer to establish a trust, to make it more difficult to fall for a romance or other scam.
If you are truly interested in forming relationships outside of a contractual nature as outlined above, you need to invest many years for an uncertain payoff. Typically a church or community center has compassionate people of mixed ages, but if I was being cynical I'd say queer spaces are often very focused on building chosen family and might be a great place to get involved.
posted by Narrow Harbor at 2:31 PM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
How do you check if someone is trustworthy?
I do it by making it a personal policy to assume that anybody I encounter is indeed worthy of my trust, and extending them my trust unless and until I'm provided with irrefutable evidence that they've betrayed it, or betrayed somebody else's in a way that I would not also have done in their shoes.
The way I see it, trusting people is a choice. Choosing to trust by default obviously leaves one open to the possibility of unexpected betrayal, but although betrayal hurts like hell, betrayals are specific, time-limited events and that almost always makes it possible to recover from them.
Distrust as default personal policy, though, is corrosive to the soul. I've watched people do it and it looks like a completely miserable way to live. Not only that, but it cannot prevent betrayal. In fact, depending on how the lack of trust is expressed, it can actually make betrayal more likely; distrust can become self-fulfilling.
So basically it comes down to a numbers game: the longer I've known and trusted somebody and not seen them commit betrayal, the lower becomes the actual risk that they ever will. And if the people I choose to hang out with all run much the same personal policy, there are network effects that help maintain trust across the whole group.
Over time, the bastards inevitably out themselves and the inner circle is just those left standing.
posted by flabdablet at 3:21 PM on June 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
I do it by making it a personal policy to assume that anybody I encounter is indeed worthy of my trust, and extending them my trust unless and until I'm provided with irrefutable evidence that they've betrayed it, or betrayed somebody else's in a way that I would not also have done in their shoes.
The way I see it, trusting people is a choice. Choosing to trust by default obviously leaves one open to the possibility of unexpected betrayal, but although betrayal hurts like hell, betrayals are specific, time-limited events and that almost always makes it possible to recover from them.
Distrust as default personal policy, though, is corrosive to the soul. I've watched people do it and it looks like a completely miserable way to live. Not only that, but it cannot prevent betrayal. In fact, depending on how the lack of trust is expressed, it can actually make betrayal more likely; distrust can become self-fulfilling.
So basically it comes down to a numbers game: the longer I've known and trusted somebody and not seen them commit betrayal, the lower becomes the actual risk that they ever will. And if the people I choose to hang out with all run much the same personal policy, there are network effects that help maintain trust across the whole group.
Over time, the bastards inevitably out themselves and the inner circle is just those left standing.
posted by flabdablet at 3:21 PM on June 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think about this AskMe comment by Conspire from 2013 a lot. And so in the vein of that comment, I think even more than having a "trustworthy inner circle" it's important to have a community of people who look out for each other.
For some people this is their family of origin. My dad's second cousin frequently stopped in and checked on my grandmother during the time in her life when she was aging in place and living alone. I don't think my Nana would have said he was her trustworthy inner circle, but even the somewhat distant relationship—his grandmother was my Nana's sister—was enough to make it worth his time to check in on her.
For some people this a religious community, or something religion-adjacent like the Ethical Society. My mom's second cousin hosts a huge Greek Easter party at her home every year and last time I went, I ended up chatting with a young woman who was new to town and didn't know anyone yet. She was at the party because my mom's second cousin invited everyone in her Greek Orthodox congregation. The church wasn't her trustworthy inner circle; she'd just met these people. But the church was a place where someone would notice you were new to town and say hey, come over for Easter dinner, and by the way here's my second-cousin-once-removed who is about the same age as you so you'll have someone to talk to.
For some people this is a neighborhood, a physical place. I spent a couple summers doing odd-jobs as a teenager and one of them was weeding the garden of an older woman who was very reclusive and shy, probably what you and I would call severe social anxiety. She didn't feel comfortable talking to me, but she did talk to her next-door neighbor Nancy, who served as the go-between with me. Nancy wasn't her trustworthy inner circle; I don't think she really trusted anyone, but Nancy was there and would notice if the weeds needed pulling or if no one had picked up the paper.
For me this is my music community (I sing shape note music; but it's not the fact that it's shape note so much as the fact that this is a group of people who get together to uphold—and to build—a tradition. I suspect a lot of arts communities have this aspect to them). Some of the other singers are people I see once a year at best, but are still people who will help out if someone in the community is in need. We don't do that for each other because we are a trustworthy inner circle. We do it I guess because we're all part of something bigger. I think MetaFilter, at its best, has this aspect to it too, to be honest...
posted by capricorn at 4:44 PM on June 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
For some people this is their family of origin. My dad's second cousin frequently stopped in and checked on my grandmother during the time in her life when she was aging in place and living alone. I don't think my Nana would have said he was her trustworthy inner circle, but even the somewhat distant relationship—his grandmother was my Nana's sister—was enough to make it worth his time to check in on her.
For some people this a religious community, or something religion-adjacent like the Ethical Society. My mom's second cousin hosts a huge Greek Easter party at her home every year and last time I went, I ended up chatting with a young woman who was new to town and didn't know anyone yet. She was at the party because my mom's second cousin invited everyone in her Greek Orthodox congregation. The church wasn't her trustworthy inner circle; she'd just met these people. But the church was a place where someone would notice you were new to town and say hey, come over for Easter dinner, and by the way here's my second-cousin-once-removed who is about the same age as you so you'll have someone to talk to.
For some people this is a neighborhood, a physical place. I spent a couple summers doing odd-jobs as a teenager and one of them was weeding the garden of an older woman who was very reclusive and shy, probably what you and I would call severe social anxiety. She didn't feel comfortable talking to me, but she did talk to her next-door neighbor Nancy, who served as the go-between with me. Nancy wasn't her trustworthy inner circle; I don't think she really trusted anyone, but Nancy was there and would notice if the weeds needed pulling or if no one had picked up the paper.
For me this is my music community (I sing shape note music; but it's not the fact that it's shape note so much as the fact that this is a group of people who get together to uphold—and to build—a tradition. I suspect a lot of arts communities have this aspect to them). Some of the other singers are people I see once a year at best, but are still people who will help out if someone in the community is in need. We don't do that for each other because we are a trustworthy inner circle. We do it I guess because we're all part of something bigger. I think MetaFilter, at its best, has this aspect to it too, to be honest...
posted by capricorn at 4:44 PM on June 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
Mod note: A few deleted. Sorry, but Ask Metafilter is not for back and forth chat or discussion. It's fine for the question poster to comment to clarify if there is a misunderstanding or to update with further information or with a resolution, but aside from that, best to just relax and take in the answers. Thanks!
posted by taz (staff) at 10:44 PM on June 5, 2023
posted by taz (staff) at 10:44 PM on June 5, 2023
A piece of trustworthy that it sounds like you're looking for (though not calling out specifically) is reliable. You develop a reliable group of people by relying on them, and being someone they can rely on, and ideally doing things for a third party together - friends who go volunteering with you, or who you meet through the "bringing meals to the hospitalized" group at your church/temple/community center. Friends who you can ask "do you have any blankets we could use for the picnic?" and who show up with folding chairs, blankets and a tent - or if they don't have lots of "stuff" resources, at the very least show up with a couple borrowed blankets and a plan to go by the laundromat after. You want to be connected to people who notice things and aren't scared of a little work.
posted by Lady Li at 1:58 AM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Lady Li at 1:58 AM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
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On the question of how do you build emotional connection, there is a recent book called Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues that describes a process of gradual disclosure and trust building that can lead to deep connection with other people.
posted by metahawk at 1:15 PM on June 5, 2023 [1 favorite]