As I became older different friends and situations taught me that such information can sometimes be almost useless. It happened several times that those smooth and pleasant relationships, when you’re sure that you know your friend well, you share beautiful moments and almost never argue, ended up in disappointment or betrayal. Usually, the reason was of a totally unexpected nature. This makes me wonder if our expectations are appropriate when it comes to relationships or are they just limits aimed at temporarily protecting us?

It happens to me when I meet acquaintances or classmates whom I haven’t seen in a long time, and often the attitude towards me is the same as years ago, as if nothing changed. Sometimes, keeping in mind people’s personality traits or the negative experiences related to them can help, because we may avoid being disappointed again. However, the risk is that we could overlook the change which might have happened. Maybe we both learned certain lessons and it would be fair to open up to others, even if we stay reasonably cautious. It requires will and flexibility to be able to adapt and adjust new information to old cognitive schemes and for some this implies mental discomfort.

What if we stopped living with the idea that we know our friends so well, that we can read them and they could never harm us? After all, people are the most unpredictable beings on earth, contrary to what some psychology theories claim. I am not saying we should start doubting all our friends, but just mentally detaching from their ideal image in our minds and admitting they are also humans and they might do things we do not like or approve of.

Not too long ago I lent money to a friend, for a few weeks, so that he could launch a project. The situation was familiar: we knew each other for quite some time; I thought I knew a lot about this person and interacted enough in order to trust him. After the period of time we agreed upon passed, he told me the project wasn’t successful, so he needed more time to earn that money back. I was still hoping I would gradually see small parts of that amount, and as he promised, it would take "a few more weeks”. A year later I was still waiting for the money.

Actually, the problem was that his debt was not a priority for him. This friend went on vacation that year and his other actions told me that if he really wanted, he would have managed to keep his promise. He was just postponing the payment, taking advantage of my tolerant attitude. I ended up blaming myself for being so naïve. However, I cannot say that I would not trust my friend at all after this experience. Money-wise, I would definitely not take such risks again. Otherwise, I still think he can be trusted, but to a certain degree and on particular issues only.

So, how do we decide to trust people? Are there different types of trust, are there degrees of trust? My current understanding of trust is linked to the concept of intuition - that immediate, subtle, inner, three-second reaction to a person or situation. Some define it as the final result after information received subconsciously from all our six senses has been processed. I often ignore it and for some reason prefer to listen to my logic, only to realize later that my first impression was accurate. This would explain why we trust some people easily and immediately, including strangers.

To me, trust is the belief that the person whom I decide to trust, will act according to the values we both share and will not intentionally harm or cheat on me. I am trying to make such decisions based on intuition, on the answer to the question: "Is this safe or not?” or "If it’s not completely safe, to what extent am I willing to take a risk?”

I believe trust can also be influenced and triggered by our curiosity. As a member of an online international community for travelers, where people can host or be hosted by locals while traveling, I had a lot of positive experiences in this regard. It is free of charge and the bottom line is to promote cultural exchange at the grassroots level, break stereotypes and teach people to discover each other amicably. I was both a guest and a host and must admit that after such experiences, I started to look at people in a more positive and optimistic way.

It happened to me that my host, a person who only read my profile and comments left by other members, gave me the key to her apartment, a city map and said: "Have fun!" This struck me as an amazing display of trust, trust in total strangers. And as a child, I was taught not to trust strangers. Could this be a culturally-bound perception? Are people considered inherently bad in some cultures, while in others openness and positive interest towards people is encouraged?

When I came back home, I decided to host travelers myself and convinced my parents that this would be a great experience. So on occasion, they agreed to open up their house and hearts to total strangers and enjoy a cultural exchange. However, they would never agree to give the keys to somebody, and I realize this fear is underpinned by years of unsecure life and material hardships, specific to transition countries.

For me, these are small social experiments, where people learn to trust each other based only on some basic profile information, intuition and repeated positive experiences. I assume that some people feel flattered when they see others trusting them so much, so they try to live up to those expectations. Of course, they might also take advantage of this, if they don’t stick to any general human values.

This also helped me understand that observing and analyzing someone's behavior in different situations, can help a great deal in deciding whether to trust that person or not. Probably one of the best ways of "testing” ourselves and our friends is to travel or engage in various activities together, so that we can discover each other in unexpected situations. This is when our true nature reveals itself.