How do you know who to trust?

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I find it hard to trust anyone. I have the very naive outlook of trusting everyone until they break my trust. I'm finding it confusing at the moment because people keep saying to me "oh, you can't trust them", and it seems to be about everyone: do I just not trust anyone with anything?
I feel like I trust people too much and then end up getting hurt by it, or go around trusting noone. What 's best to do?

Sorry that I can't offer you any advice.

I have the same problem too. I tend to trust people and then find out that they had really poor intentions. It's heartbreaking.

I've even experienced it with my extended family and then been told that "your family is not your friends" it is all very confusing stuff to me.

limit the t-word. Don't trust anyone with everything, only somethings

I have had somewhat the same problem all of my life too, but I've learned to work with it.

There's nothing wrong with trusting people. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that your attitude is actually better than never trusting anyone.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Sound familiar? There's more to that proverb than just what it says. What it implies is also important. In order for anyone to fool you once, you have to trust them to begin with. If you spend your entire life suspicious of everyone, you won't put any faith in anyone, won't trust them, and they won't have the opportunity to pull anything on you. Trouble is, mistrust breeds mistrust. If you don't trust anyone, and it's obvious, very few will trust you in return.

Human beings can be treacherous at times. If you want any mutually trusting relationships, you have to take the first step. You have to trust first, hope it isn't misplaced, and adjust as needed.

It's called giving others the benefit of the doubt, and there's nothing wrong with it at all.

Caveat emptor though! Buyer beware!

It's been my experience that manipulative people are attracted to easily manipulated people. You may be, as I used to be, a bit gullible (no offense). If you are (remember I used to be very gullible), manipulative conniving types love that in other people. And that may be why you seem to feel that it happens to you a lot.

It could be true!

Just remember, trust first, but only until you find any reason at all not to. If someone screws you over, and it is obvious, NEVER trust them again, unless, in very rare cases, they prove they can be by making serious amends.

I live by a simple mantra when it comes to trust.

I give it freely to all. If you abuse it, you get no more, until you repay what you've done.

Works pretty well for me.

Just one more thing.

I never, NEVER, EVER trust a total stranger. That "free trust" only comes though, at the price of knowing who you are and seeing your face. I do trust people that are not necessarily friends, but only if I really know, I mean REALLY know, who they are.

Oh, yeah. And only trust as far as the relationship deserves. I would never lend someone I only "know" a hundred bucks, for example. Just because I trust people up front doesn't mean I'm stupid.

Trust! But never be afraid to use the word "no" either.

I used to be the same. When I was younger I used to believe every word that people where saying and I had the ridiculous notion that people where much more knowledgeable than me. I´m not like that anymore. I have come to the conclusion that others are not so smart and trustworthy after all, on the contrary! Nowadays I only trust and believe people who have proven to me that they can be trusted and my tendancy to take everybody serious is totally gone. And to be honest: I'm glad that I'm not going through life as a naive fool anymore.
The majority of the people on this planet are behaving like feebleminded donkeys in a herd and that has probably always been the case.

Last edited by pokerface on 10 Oct 2011, 2:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

There's a saying: "With all trust, there is the possibility of betrayal. But without trust, there is no closeness, no friendship, none of the emotional things that make us who we are."

I would add that trust must be earned, not given away. I'm getting better at discerning whether someone actively has bad intentions towards me.

i feel your problem. ive struggled with this so much ive been taken advantage of and my head messed to kingdom come, to the point where i dont even trust a close family member any more. all i can say is, through my lessons, ive learnt to always trust your instincts, and never share anything with someone else, unless you want the whole world to know it, cause ive found eventually they will.


(edit) there are different kinds of trust and levels though. it means something different to you, so its a journey of discovery.
i know what ive learnt personally, but my advice might not be for you. just dont give up hope and dont close your heart, because there are roses out there worth opening yourself to

Last edited by LemonPieForAPirate on 10 Oct 2011, 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That makes YOU who YOU are.

My need for friendships and certainly closeness has never been very high and never will be. That is one of the differences between autistic people and NT´s.

I think maybe you have to start by trusting people with inconsequential things By this I mean for example someone you have known for a few hours could be told facts about you or your family which they couldnt do much harm with. Really untrustworthy people might twist what you told them and sprea rumours about what you said about yourself and your family. But in that case you could cut them out of your life without them having a serious effect on your life. If you have known them for a month or so you could then think about telling them you have autism or some other fact which is more important to you which could more easily be used against but hopefully you know them well enough to guess they probably wont.

I think it is all about not revealing too much too soon and judging their actions after every new thing you have trusted them with.

Another example might be that if a stranger stops you in the street and asks if you could lend them 20cents/20pence for a bus ticket or something. You dont know them therefore should not trust them with anything important but 20cents/pence is small enough to lose without affecting you if you dont get it back. If a person who you had known to say hello to at work for a year asked you if they could borrow a dollar/pound you might decided to give them it because even though it is a higher amount there is a greater chance that they will give it you back. And the final one would be a friend that you had been going out socialising with regularly for 10 years one day said they had forgotten their money and could you pay for their 30dollar/pound ticket into the gig you were about to go into. You would most likely do this for them because you could be almost certain that they would give you the money back or pay for your ticket one time that you forgot your money.

Its about probability and consequences. If you are unsure of the probability of a good outcome dont put too much into the situation then you cant lose much. I would say keep trusting people with small things until they prove trust worthy enough for bigger things and you should be ok.

I guess trusting people is a very important personal trait. Learning when to stop trusting someone (sometimes the hard way) is the difficult part. It's better not to be paranoid, though. My ex gf freaked me out with her paranoia and general mistrust toward people many times. I seem to be the opposite. I'm surprised to see still how gullible I am. Unfortunately, I'm struggling with knowing when I turn down people, too, so it's quite probable with any of my attempts connecting to people that I don't know what has gone wrong between me and them. Was it me, or was it the other person? I've got heaps of frustration because of it.

They say you don't have to be friends with everybody. If people mistrust you, question your honesty, say you lied, are contemptuous with you or your kind/identity/family of origin, or regard you with any kind of disgrace, skip them. Remember, they have the right to dump you just as you have the right to dump them.

and that is the question

I have a hard time telling who I can trust and who I can't. My fix is to trust nobody but myself.

I trust people to a certain extent. I don't like to not trust people, but it's always advised to never trust anybody too much (close family is an exception). Even NTs only trust eachother to a certain extent. Being NT does not mean ''everyone you meet will be your friends for life.'' Some people you trust more than others. I did used to have a friend who had quite a nasty streak inside her, and it sometimes made her do and say nasty things, and I gave her a chance with my friendship because I like to do that with everybody, but I didn't let myself trust her too much. You have to trust people a tiny bit, otherwise you'd never meet anyone or do anything, but I didn't trust her enough to want to tell her all of my business. I just hung about with her, made small talk, and just listened to her problems. I'm not friends with her now, and I don't really intend to be because being friends with someone who you don't want to trust just leaves you treading on eggshells all the time. I've got a few better friends now who I trust, but there's still one or two who I don't fully trust, but trust more than I did with that girl.

Trust that everyone deserves your respect until proven otherwise.

Trust in terms of favors or commitment should not be freely given or expected, but should be earned by family, friends and acquaintances. Building trust is an investment that grows over time. Start small and only invest in others what you can afford to lose if your trust is breached.

As you build trust, don't base trust on what people say. Base your trust on what people actually do--their actions.

Except in specific cases where I get the sense that the person has a devious plan to do me harm, which is extremely rare, I trust people. Does that mean I think they are always acting in my best interest: no. People call me gullible thinking I don't understand this. I understand, it's just that I love the feeling of walking through the world feeling that it's a beautiful safe loving wonderful place, and not a cruel place where no one is looking out for other people, and something is what you name it basically, so I call it good and believe it's good and it is true as someone above said that the more you trust the more you are trusted.

for me it's something i'm learning through experience. not the funnest way to learn but i think it's working