trust in verbal agreement

when you agree to something, what does the agreement actually entail? like when a friend asks you to do something and you say yes, does yes mean yes unconditionally or does it mean yes with provisions?

it is clear when your boss asks for something and you say yes it usually means a clear yes i'll do it by the specified time and standards. friendship blurs many things, including any agreement. agreements between friends are mostly verbal, and the casualness of this agreement usually decreases the importance placed on such agreements.

moreover one of the pillars in many friendships is tolerance and understanding. this tolerance will result in conflicting expectations between friends in agreements. if one side doesn't uphold the agreement, he feels that his friend should at least show a minimum amount of understanding. however for the friend who is at the end of the unfulfilled agreement, he would feel that as a friend, not upholding a agreement is a breach of trust in the first place.

how complicated can friendship get. all the expressed and unexpressed expectations further complicate this issue of trust. can you trust a friend to do something if you did not tell him that it was expected? is he expected to know? are you right to expect someone to know something that you did not tell him? and are you in the right position to judge what is common sense and what is a reasonable expectation?

and in projects undertaken by friends, is there a minimum degree of commitment and accountability expected? like if we play a soccer match wouldn't you expect all the team members to give their all?

1. let's take this case of 2 13 year old boys in school. one of them bought a men's magazine, and the other one wanted to borrow it (because no one else dared to buy one). so the condition the lender imposed on the borrower is that if anyone finds it the borrower had to say that the magazine was his. the borrower's mum found out and the borrower, fearing the worse, told her that the lender forced him to bring it home. the school was notified, the story verified and the lender's story was confirmed. the lender was punished.

what is wrong with the decisions made by people in this story? what are the wrong signals being given?

• lying to get away with things is acceptable
• it is not important to uphold clearly expressed terms in a verbal contract
• both boys commited almost the same crime, possesion of undesireable materials, but only the lender was punished, and he wasn't even caught in possesion of it
• the education system doesn't impart the correct values and morals to young children, by not holding them accountable for their actions and promises

2. a group of students acquired a set of test answers for a test. they were caught. one of the students who was involved in the acquisition ratted out on the supplier and he got off while the rest were punished. when the supplier was changing class in school to the rat's class, the rat was afraid of the ill feeling he had generated and bad mouthed the supplier to everyone. in the end the class realised that the rat was a fraud when they found out the true story.

3. once a group of students held a party in a club. many of those who bought tickets were underaged. police raided the club and all but 2 of the organisers left the scene. there was one organiser who stood foolishly at the club entrance and identified himself to the police as an organiser. he also told them the name of the head and agreed to find him for them. luckily the head escaped.

• others are being rewarded for the stupidity of some
• friends should have the decency to protect one another

4. a few friends decided to hold a party. one of them was worried about sales and that they were going to lose money, so he kept asking the others to try to get more people to go. one of them told him not to talk to her about the party anymore because she had to study for exams. if they lost money she would not have the money to pay for the loss. in the end thanks to the efforts of one guy they made a decent sum. he split the money up evenly even though the contribution of the others was very minute.

• when you go into a business venture, isn't there an understanding that you would do what you can not to let your partners down?
• isn't it abit shameful to tell your partner you will not be contributing anymore then taking the money of the profits from other's hard work?

such things are quite complicated at times and awfuly simple at others. it all depends on what you feel a verbal agreement and commitment should entail. and it also depends on what you feel trust among friends should be.

but shouldn't there be a very high level of trust among friends? that is what friendship is about isn't it? reliability and sacrificing yourself, not your friends. in all the above cases a friend is sacrificing another friend. i am saddened that such things can happen.