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This article is about warning signs to look for prior to making a bad decision to trust those whom you shouldn’t.
Withholding all your trust will lead to lonesome paranoia. Trust is needed. It is leverage that allows for movement of barriers in your way that you aren’t capable of moving by yourself. Communication without any trust will leave you trying to move the world all by yourself; an impossible endeavor.
Trust also comes with risk.
Blindly trusting people without taking steps to mitigate trust’s risk potential is bound to burn those flimsy with their trust. Some who blindly trust are inexperienced with malice, others are easy to influence with shallow words and acts. Whichever it may be, below are things to keep an eye on.
Unnatural Effort Into Early First Impressions
The sprint vs. marathon analogy is often used to describe someone spending too much energy too early in the race. Those who encourage blind trust on your behalf tend to adopt a sprinting approach to their relationship with you.
Individuals looking to pressure you into trusting them are quick off the mark once they meet you. They show you every good angle to their smile and impress with the vocabulary they employ. They expend unnatural effort into making a good first impression.
Since they don’t yet know what subjective factors make a good first impression in your eyes, they go by the objective rules of thumb. They are pleasant and positive to the extent that cultural norms deem so. They use confidence to mask inexperience; speaking in a loud and assertive tone, and strictly attempting to abide by societal beauty standards.
The ultimate gauge in this matter is whether someone can maintain their act into the marathon distance of their relationship with you. Ask yourself whether this individual plans to be a part of your life for long by the way they attempt to impress early.
First impressions that are cookie-cutter versions of what broad society deems effective are bound to fizzle out and reveal authenticity. Does the individual in question plan to unveil their authentic self to you?
One Solution With No Other Options
The general mechanism of gaining and giving trust relies on a problem being present, a solution being presented, and the individual at hand gaining access to your vulnerabilities so they can aid in solving the problem.
Trusting someone goes awry when they derive personal benefit from being in proximity to your vulnerabilities.
Those who encourage blind trust from you in an effort to derive personal benefit tend to only have one “solution” to the problem you come to them with. Whether the person in question is an investment broker, a real estate agent, or a close friend, someone looking to derive personal benefit will attempt to steer the ship toward one proposed solution to any issue you come to them with in confidence.
Their bias towards the one solution that will allow opportunities to take advantage of your vulnerability will be presented as the best solution. It will be difficult to propose other options as they will present themselves to be the knowledgeable authority, and will provide reasons that sound authentic to why their one preferred solution is the best. You will feel a potent sense of an inability to take charge of the direction your trust in them is leading you toward.
Hesitation Brushed Off With Confidence
Concerns and questions raised against a malicious actor’s proposal for your trust are generally met with unabashed confidence. Such individuals seek to control the pathway to exploiting your vulnerability for their benefit. Any plans these individuals make and decisions they propose have ulterior motives which seek to deliver personal benefit to them. For this reason, your attempt to deviate from the plan they place is met with rigidity.
Prior to your trust being dedicated to the individual in question, they will be stuck to the methodology they lay out surrounding the issue at hand. These methodologies typically attempt to expose you to unnecessary and unmitigated risk. They will defend their intended course of travel with confidence against all questions and concerns.
These moments of confidence emanating from those you’re debating on trusting arise immediately prior to formal commitments being made. Contracts being signed, money being exchanged, and structured plans being set are some examples of such formal commitments.
It’s Dangerous if You Don’t Come With Me
Malicious individuals seeking your trust will resort to eliciting fear should your hesitation withstand their confident attempts to pressure you into employing the plan they’ve presented.
Since attempts at gaining your blind trust via an attractive plan won’t be working, they will begin constructing and exaggerating external factors which pressure you from the outside in. The established familiarity you have with such an individual will be used against you by making out those you’ve not yet met or seen as dangerous.
For instance, a potential accountant may begin citing how other accountants you haven’t yet met are all liars and cheats. A potential landlord may seek to convince you that you won’t find a better rental unit anywhere else in the neighborhood. A sales associate at a retail store may promise you that you won’t find a better deal on a particular appliance anywhere else.
Those seeking your blind trust in an effort to derive benefit and encourage you to make a bad decision will seek to make you feel as if they’re your savior and are looking out for your personal interests. The likelihood is that they aren’t – thereby exhibiting dishonesty.
No Contingency Plan, Only General Promises
When determining whether to place trust in someone to help you through a barrier or difficulty in exchange for your vulnerability, it makes sense to have contingency plans in place. Knowing what to do if things go wrong with the plan in place is an important metric to judge potential earners of your trust by.
Those who attempt to gain your blind trust in an effort to exploit it will not respond attentively to attempts to set contingency plans to the very direction they encourage your travel in. The nefarious plans they keep private will discourage them from showing any interest for your best interest into the nuanced long term. Even the better actors will have trouble masking disinterest in what you think are legitimate needs for contingency plans surrounding the matters you’re placing your trust in others to handle.
Someone’s lack of willingness to walk through nuanced steps, options, and contingency plans regarding any matter which demands you trust them is a red flag.
Disinterest After Your Commitment
You may sense a change in the investment of someone who sought your trust after you sign the proverbial dotted line. Someone encouraging you to trust blindly will respond coldly to any commitments made by you. They will find it difficult to muster the same investment and level of motivation as before you cemented your trust in them.
The commitment in question is contextual but is akin to examples such as handing over money after discussing investment opportunities, giving them access to the backend of your business’ webpage, or granting them power of attorney to help with administrative matters.
A sense of dread will envelop your gut with individuals who undergo a face-change upon a commitment that you make to them with trust. The vulnerability you show prior to the commitment will now be a vulnerability accessible to them for attack. That elevated level of access to your vulnerability is troubling when they turn into a different person than they presented themselves to be.
Try your best to disperse any major commitment that seekers of your trust ask you to make into a series of multiple ones. Observe their general responses to the smaller commitments that you make with the backing of your trust prior to making the next commitment. If a major commitment consists of you completing five steps: do two things on that list today, and three next week.
A red flag in the face of a commitment you make to someone is if they grow in metaphorical stature in real time. Their attainment of the power you provide with your commitment can encourage them to begin holding themselves above you; being shorter with you, taking longer to reply, and being generally less accessible than before the commitment in question was made / embarked on.