Trust - is there anyone else out there like me?

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I'm struggling with a trust issue. A good friend of mine loves to travel.

I hate travel. I don't understand how anyone can like it.

But I wish she would at least tell me the truth when she's going places. She says "I need you to trust me when I say that I will come back."

I say "You can't promise that. And I can't trust that."

Why? Because she's promising something she can't guarantee delivery of - that she'll be safe and come back without being hurt. She can't control the weather, the people in the places she's going, or whether her plane's going to crash. So when she says she'll be back, she's either lying or ignoring the reality of the situation, and either way, it offends me and makes it really hard to trust.

If she would say "I fully intend to come back," I could trust that. And I would trust that.

But she says I'm splitting hairs, and that I should just know that's what she means. And I can't. And she's offended and thinks I don't trust her, when nothing could be further from the truth - I do trust HER. I don't trust THE WORLD.

Anyone else have this kind of issue with trust?

This is a difference between how normal people think and what is often called the black/white thinking associated with autism. In her mind she is telling the truth as she knows it.

Why can't she just see that I'm unable to see it the way she does? It can't be that hard, can it?

I think saying "trust me I will come back" is another way of saying "I'm intending to come back". But I know what you mean when you say you don't trust the world. I am a pessimist and I don't trust the world. It's just that you hear things on the news, like freak accidents, that happen out of the blue and it's scary.
At work (at a bus depot) they sometimes have a bus raised off the ground by these special clamps so that workers can get underneath, but I'm scared to go underneath a raised bus because I keep thinking the clamps might fail and the bus will fall down and squash me flat. I know the clamps are solid and are made to lift extremely heavy vehicles up off the ground, but sometimes objects just fail for no reason, causing a freak accident. It's just what goes through my head a lot of the time.

SadPhD, your anxiety about the uncertainties of the universe is likely to suck all the life out of your friend if she lets you. Not everyone obsesses about possible bad outcomes. I suggest you joke with your friend about your irrational obsession on the things that go wrong... while reassuring her of your trust that she will do her best to come back.

Why can't she think like you do? Is it that hard? Yes, it's that hard and why would she want to, anyway? Anxiety is unrealistic fear or disabling fear. I wouldn't wish that on her - would you?

Most people are wired to ignore dangers in their everyday life, as a long as they are familiar with them.
This is why people can live in California despite the obvious fire hazards.

trust is a useless and frankly misleading concept. no need to trust. just accept the possibility of change and be at peace with it. worry about what's in your immediate control rather than what you cannot control.

I get the feeling that this friendship thing is something more than that. Why don't you admit it? Because I don't know any friends who are this hung up on semantics in their friendships.

And if it's actually a "relationship," then you have bigger issues than how you define trust and anxiety.

I want to repeat something: you will suck the life out of her. You want her not to travel because you're afraid you could lose her. You are the one with anxiety. She is the one who wants to live a full life. Incompatibility.

Good point. The OP may have something called "separation anxiety."