Where do you set the bar determining who is honest or trustworthy?

Trust is a complicated thing, as everyone will tell you.

For me, the way I trust someone is based on different levels. As you said, you would trust your key to a valet but not to a random stranger. That requires a type of trust that is instant and consequence free at the time. The decision weather you want to park your car yourself and take extra time or let someone completely strange to you working for that fancy restaurant you are paying hundreds to eat it at do it himself is left entirely to you.

Other types of trust are more emotional and deep. The trust you have with your Mother or Father, the trust you have with your sister or with your best friend; they are all different types of trust that require more time and not just a spontanous decision.

The way I do it is by basing the time I’ve known them and adding the nice things they’ve done for me. Obviously judging a person is required, which may seem bad at times, but completely necessary in our survival mechanism. My criteria is that if they have been honest to me, and I know for sure, then I know I can start being honest back to them. A bond is formed upon that and is woven to what you call interpersonal-trust.

I know this sounds terrible, but I can’t genuinely trust anyone other than my closest, loved ones.

@mithical Obviously judging a person is required, which may seem bad at times, but completely necessary in our survival mechanism. People want to place such a stigma on judging someone, why? Each and every day, people make snap judgments of people or places in small but subtle way, and may not even know it. You make a decision where to eat by what part of town it is in, how clean the place looks, where you will park your car going to a party at night. There is no way to avoid judging completely so why not just admit it and do it as fair as possible.

My criteria is that if they have been honest to me, and I know for sure, then I know I can start being honest back to them. If you do not have time to establish those bonds, how do you choose who is trustworthy enough to be believed? You go to a function and there is a valet, what makes you believe he is not going to still your car? If not right then, but later because he/she put a tracking device in your car and copied your keys, because you have a car alarm? You go to a function, or business trip, etc, some woman/man tell part of the group, ”You over there are with Brian, You 12 are with me. Follow me please”. What makes you believe you are not being leg to an ambush and robbed? Would you be as trusting if you parked, got out of your car and was trying to get to a friend’s new apartment and two biker-looking dudes say they know what apartment your friend moved into and to follow them they will lead you to the door or cluster of apartments they are suppose to have moved to? What would make you follow them, and what would make you not follow them?

@Hypocrisy_Central I’m surrounded by people who can’t stand other people “judging.” I understand personally that it is a very important part of our nature. Just wanted to keep things open, which is why I added that tidbit in between commas.

Edit;

To the second part I have to honestly say that it sounds a bit paranoid. You will never be able to fully uncover if the “what ifs” were right or wrong. Sometimes you just have to go with it. That’s life.

I don’t have a bar I set. You find out whether someone is honest and trustworthy over time. With some people it doesn’t take very long, with others longer. Though it usually doesn’t take too long with most people to determine whether they are honest and trustworthy. But maybe my standards are higher, and dammit, that’s that bar you were talking about. But really, folks, it isn’t that hard to figure out.

Unless you are a gullible type person, any form of trust had to be earned over time.

I agree that trust is earned over time. The rest comes down to taking risks.

@stardust The rest comes down to taking risks. OK, I can go with that. What I want to know is if you do not have time for anyone to earn that trust, what criteria do you use, or method you employ to decide, ”I don’t think I can trust that person near my car”, ”I would not let that person watch my dog”, etc?

I came into this world too trusting, and thankfully (even after some bad experiences) i still am. I see good in people, sometimes I’ve been let down badly (although each time it has been by someone I’d known very well and had every reason to fully trust) but mostly, and I do mean this, mostly people are kind, caring. Yes there are deceitful, uncaring, hurtful people in this world, but I believe, I choose to believe, that they are in the minority. I do have some trust issues, but they are connected to those who hurt me, made me ill, and more to do with them hurting me again. Not towards strangers. I hope for the best from people and mostly I am rewarded by meeting lovely people. Would i trust my little Jade to be walked by a stranger, unaware if they loved dogs as I do or not? no I would not. Why? because if that person is cruel it would be jade who would pay the price and be hurt, not me. I am willing to take the chance if i am the only person who would suffer the consequences. Does that make sense? This is a great question honey,
hugs xx

@bunnygrl Always good to see you around. <hugs returned>

@Hypocrisy_Central thank you, its so good to be back. Arthritis/health stuff was kicking my butt pretty badly for a while there, I’ve really missed you guys <huggles> xx

I tend to start from a position of trust. Not gullible trust though. I wouldn’t loan someone money or put myself in a position of danger for instance. I would give people the benefit of the doubt in terms of trustworthiness until they prove themselves unworthy of that trust.

Trust always carries with it a built in liability for reproach and why I have surrounded myself with people who have passed the test of time who I implicitly trust to back me up no matter what the circumstance

Determining who you can trust can be simple or complicated depending on just what it is you are trusting them with. If the potential downside of trusting them is serious I am going to take more time and care to judge whether or not they are trustworthy. I think a lot of it is gut instinct. Gut instinct is a very real and viable way to quickly judge someone. We are all better at picking up on non-verbal cues like body language and lack of eye contact than most of us realize. When you add to that ability an attitude of actively looking for clues it can be even more reliable.
Living and working in New York City for a long time I can’t say that I am the most trusting person. I have always felt that I needed to protect myself and not be too gullible and trusting. Of course, as you say, a person’s appearance gives many clues. But if the rough looking person with the piercings etc. approached me with an open smile and non aggressive manner I would feel more at ease with them and more trusting than if they approached me with a swagger and shifty eyes.
I have had experiences where I tried not to prejudge someone and found out I should have listened to my instincts. I made a resolution after the my car almost got hijacked with me in it to never be ashamed of being paranoid! That was my closest call with crime.
There are a lot of con artists in the world and I don’t part easily with any person who comes up to me begging for money. Recently a girl came up to me asking for advice about whether the cops would arrest her if she went around begging money to get home. She had a very long involved story of how she had left her wallet in the cab, how she had called visitor services and was waiting for them to get back to her all day, She had the phone numbers all written in a book she was carrying. Inside the book she had about $15 dollars in cash. She said she needed 50 more to get her ticket home. I asked her all kinds of questions and she had her story all straight. I kept looking at her and looking at her, in the eyes, how she was dressed (casual but neat) , Her demeanor was like a frightened rabbit. The thought crossed my mind that she was trying to get away from someone who was abusing her. I was on my way home from work and I had to leave. I decided that even if she was lying she was the best damn liar I had ever met in all my years of living in the city. Something about her made me want to protect her. I mean, her fear was palpable. There were cops everywhere around, we were in Penn Station. I gave her $20 which I never do. I almost wanted to give her $50. She said she was stranded and had to get upstate. I still don’t know if I was listening to my gut or ignoring it in this case.

I don’t. After several decades it’s still trial and error. However, I did learn some time ago to stand by my feelings of who is a friend, who is an acquaintance and so on.

@Hypocrisy_Central I suppose it comes down to a gut feeling. May sound vague, but if I don’t have the time to earn a person’s trust, that’s pretty much all I have to go on. Unless of course somebody I trust can vouch for the person in question.