What's Real? What's Fake?

I don't have kids.  However, if  I did, I would school them on discerning what is real and what is fake when it comes to people.  My instruction to him/her would be: everyone is fake until proven otherwise.  Period.  It doesn't mean that you shouldn't respect them or not treat them fairly.  It just means that you don't submit your feelings to them until they are deemed worthy.  Then I would teach that child what questions to ask to help determine someone's authenticity as well as how to pay attention to actions.

Because it's not easy out here to avoid people who have agendas not congruent to your own.  It doesn't necessarily mean that they are bad people.  It just means that you don't want the same thing or maybe you don't wish to take the same path to arrive to a common goal.  

I was thrusted back into the dating world back in 2012 after the death of my wife and I was not ready at all.  I moved way too quickly and found myself in multipe situations with people who did not prioritize my heart.  T.I. once rapped that, "...all I wanna do is just feel love.  Even if I know it ain't real love..."  That applied to me 100% and I had to be honest with myself and realize that I was approaching things completely wrong.

Those experiences allowed me to grow and flourish to become something even better than I thought I could be.  I'm so thankful for that.  But those experiences also taught me to trust what I see and to not allow myself to get consumed in something that's not meant for me.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is: we usually know when something is not genuine.  We can even pick up on people who are fooling themselves just to try and fool us.  What we need is the confidence and courage to walk away from it until something better comes along.  Because we deserve the best for ourselves.