Do you trust immediately or wait and see?

I'm the same. All strangers are potential a-holes, and even when you spend time around someone and they seem nice, they still can't be trusted. You have to really know a person before you can know how much you can trust them.

 

Don't start out trusting someone. End up trusting someone.

 

Hmm, I used not to trust people initially but later have learned that it's much better to trust them. It's because you change people with your behavior - if you do not show trust then others are more likely to betray you. It's also a much more lonelier experience to be paranoid.

 

It's an interesting question. There isn't very much time to decide either way, when I first meet someone, before my first impression instinct/intuition kicks in. The feedback I receive once this kicks in is what guides how I feel towards that person. I think (and I hope I'm correct in this) that my judgment of people is fairly accurate, and my response is based largely on this. With most people, I tend proceed cautiously - some because I still need to figure them out further, and others because they are not people I feel safe letting go with.

On the whole, I think I experience people as either someone I'm drawn to or someone I'm uncomfortable around, and that's the lens I'm inclined to view them through. I need to expand this though, so that I'm able to accept that people are who they might be, jerk-like and all, without excusing or condemning them.

ETA: It's not easy for me to trust someone though, and I think this stems from my standards of people and relationships (too high perhaps) and a sensitivity to people energetically that seems to dictate a large part of my interactions/relationships. But there are also things within myself that I'm sorting out, which, when sorted out, will ease all of this.

 

As an ENFP, I trust by default, and have a really hard time, when I must decide to distrust, even when all evidence should convince me so. The reason is very simple: I put myself in other people's shoes, as much as I can, and so I believe that if they have reasons to act in non-credible ways, I should find their reasons and possibly help them. Distrust for me means to give up solving the problem, and just cross it with the red line of "[strike]not to be trusted[/strike]". That doesn't mean I believe everything people claim, but I believe in their good reasons, and I usually want to have explanation about what made them say it; did they really mean it, if not, why did they say it; was it a joke, or (sub)conscious manipulation etc. Another issue is that I tend to not divide people by credibility, because absolutely everybody tells both truths and lies in time. A statement deserves my attention, if another human bothered to make it.

 

Agree completely.

 

The last time I flat out trusted someone, without the normal preliminary steps, I fucked myself over big time. So no, trust is something that is built up over time and even then, most people won't fully receive it.

 

I give people the benefit of the doubt, but I, as a rule, don't take advice or act solely on the testimony of someone who has not earned my trust. So in a sense I do believe them. Trust is separate issue with me, however. That is because I see trust as two-way. I don't trust anyone who doesn't trust me, for example. It requires having both subjective and objective reasons to feel at easy sharing information with a person as well as receiving it. That is something that I know doesn't come easy to an INFJ and I'm no exception.

 

I haven't really been hurt that much and I don't think of people being out there to get me but I've always had this inner distrust towards people ever since I was a child. There's a huge part of me that wants to believe the best of people but I can't seem to shake that strong feeling that it is better to wait and see what will become of things.

Some people really don't get my trust fully, I have a very strong inner feeling that they just cannot be fully trusted, even if they do appear as wonderful people. It's not even that I believe that they want to hurt people intentionally. It's more that I somehow know that they will break the trust eventually even if they don't have any malicious intentions, they just can't help it.

 

That would probably stem from distrusting the unknowable. Being simply human we do not have the obvious empirical access to another persons thoughts that we have with our own and, as a result, we distrust other human beings out of that barrier.

 

I trust everyone from the beginning, unless there is something about their character that makes me uneasy.

 

For myself, I so badly want to see the best in others, and even though I feel this way, I rarely trust completely if at all...

I might share some things, but the truth of me, (vulnerabilities etc.) are kept to myself until trust has been earned.

Meanwhile, I try and enjoy everyone for what they're worth, and pay attention to my intuition at all times. (and try not to fight with it because I don't like what it's telling me)

 

I never trust anyone right off the bat. Definitely not like me at all. While I never dislike a person when first meeting them (unless they really give me a reason to) and I do easily see the good in anyone right off the bat, there really is no way that I'll allow them in so soon. I feel like once I let a person in, they're pretty much there for life. That's why it's probably so difficult. It takes quite a bit to break my outer shell and I'm pretty suspicious of new people and strangers. Well...hmm...maybe not suspicious. Just careful. So no. Must be earned. : )

 

For me trust is something which is earned over time. Even then,there
are things about me which i don't really share with anyone.
It's sort of as if have an internal radar which allows me to determine
how much i can tell someone.

 

I used to trust everyone immediately until they gave me cause not to - but now, I've been hurt to much, and although I do trust them, I trust them in very small ways and probably examine their behaviors too much. Interesting question!

 

This pretty much sums up me.

I tend to require people to earn my trust and once they've done that, they'll get the benefit of the doubt until something major ruins that trust. I also stick to the idea of two-way trust being required.

 

I used to be fairly trusting but in recent years I have grown more cynical about people and find myself incapable of trusting anyone. Now I simply assume everything is a trap.

 

Do I immediately trust? Sure.

But there are different levels of trust, right?
I trust the person I sit next to at a coffee shop not to put down their copy of New Moon and bite my neck. I trust friends of friends not to give my phone number out if I give it to them when they ask for it. I trust my waitress not to steal my credit card number when I give it to her to pay for my meal. I trust people with all kinds of things in all kinds of situations. That being said, there is an inner level of trust that no one is implicitly granted access to right off the bat.

Some people have been granted access, others are still in observation, and then there are those who will eternally be locked out. But just because I don't fully trust a friend with the core of who I am inside doesn't mean I wear soul-kevlar when I'm with them. I let them know, 'yeah, I'm having a tough time right now' 'oh, i'm sorry, what's been going on?' 'oh, i'm just going through some stuff right now'.

I don't say this cynically, but I am convinced that as much trust as I grant someone, no matter how loyal they are, and how hard they try to understand, there will be times when my closest most trusted confidant will be locked out. Not because I don't trust them but because they wouldn't be able to understand even if I told them. It's either out of concern for them, because I don't want them to worry about me, that I don't tell them everything OR because I'm not ready to actually deal with what's going on inside me - to talk about it makes it real and will force me to experience what's going on inside of me.

No mere human can know me and completely understand me. I don't even understand or trust myself half the time.

 

i kind of... not trust that easily but, i also feel bad when other people feel bad about me not trusting them. because maybe some people that i know feel that i dislike them because i don't trust them that much. So, i don't really label them as a person not to be trusted at first.. because that would somewhat limit me from knowing them.

well maybe i trust first but not the full trust as in tell secrets and everything trust.. maybe i just give them like the trust and respect i think all people deserve.