Too gullible and too naive?

Post Reply New Topic

Yesterday I was chatting with someone online. We've been talking for a while and since I so desperately want to figure out why I am the way I am and if my (and the professional's) suspicions (about AS) are right we've been talking a bit about AS and my life. I don't know why but I feel a need to talk about it. As if that's what I need to process all of this. Anyway, at the end of the conversation he told me that I should be careful about what information I share with people. He said I could trust him but that there are people who use people who are too trustful. He wondered if maybe I'm a bit naive. That made me really worried.

Perhaps I am too gullible and too naive. I hadn't really given it much thought before he mentioned it yesterday. I realise he's right. I am very gullible and naive. I sort of try to believe that people are good and I always believe what people tell me. If they say they're going to do something I believe they will. I'm trustful of people until they give me a reason not to trust them. It doesn't mean I share loads of private information about my life with them. I'm a very cautious person and I'm very reserved and withdrawn. But when I feel the need to talk about something I talk about it. I didn't do that before. Started doing so about a year ago.

I remember once, when I was 13, there was this guy in my class who talked to me and he was really nice to me. He asked me a lot of questions and said he wanted to know more about me. He said he was my friend. Since I was bullied at the time I really appreciated someone wanting to spend time with me. Later it turned out that he'd been lying. That he was just another bully who had asked me a lot of questions so that he could spread it to others and spread rumours. I trusted him. I shouldn't have.

Can anyone relate to this? Are you trustful of people? Why is it that I'm so naive? The guy I chatted with yesterday said that people with AS (especially girls) sometimes are a bit gullible and that people might take advantage of that. Is that true?

When I was quite young I used to expect people to be honest and generally good, but through life one finds plenty of evidence that that's not always true. Over the years I've gone through several changes in my outlook on people in general and have explained the inconsistency in different ways at different times.

Later in my childhood I started to think that people were essentially good, but would mistreat each other when trying to acheive another goal they viewed as important; that they hurt people either because they felt they had no choice, they were unaware of the harm they were doing, or they were making a trade off in favour of another value they believed was more important at the time. But in any case, I assumed that though they may treat people poorly sometimes, their motivation was not simple malice or selfishness. At that time I suppose I was becoming more cautious, but was still pretty naive and had trouble accepting that people could act with complete disregard for others -- I still believed that people would only do harm with a reason, however misguided it may be.

Since then I've come to accept that some people really don't care if they do harm, or at least don't care whether they harm someone they don't identify with. Such people will remorselessly act to their own benefit, even knowing full well they're harming someone else, and even when their personal gain from doing so is small. I still believe that most people are generally good and at least prefer to avoid harming or upsetting others, or even prefer to help them -- but that even those people will balance that preference against other priorities, and that not everyone is so altruistic. So I still have a fairly positive view of people in general, but I'm always aware that there are exceptions and have become much more cautious. I may still be overly trusting on occasion, but I don't think I'm nearly as naive as I once was... on the downside, the naive view of the world was less depressing even if it was more dangerous.

Yes, I was a pretty naive kid.

I remember one somewhat funny story - some of older boys once told me that they knew some kind of "ritual" that would make me forget my name. So I closed my eyes and I felt that they touched my face - very unpleasant, but my curiosity was stronger so I waited. Obviosuly, I did not forget my name and they were really surprised that it "didn't work". When I went home I happened to glance into the mirror... and notice my face was black. There was ash on it... the "name-forgetting ritual" turned out to be a prank.

Over the years I leqarned not to be so gullible. Naivete can cost you your life in this part of the world, so one should get over it fast.

Yes, unfortunately there are some people who enjoy gossiping and making fun of other people's weaknesses. I don't know how malicious they are, but some people can very easily pass your personal information to others. Once you say something, you can't unsay it. So you should only give any personal information to people who can be absolutely trusted.

I believe that people with AS, both males and females, tend to be lonely and very easily trust whoever is friendly. Also I think our weak non-verbal communication skills make us quite trusting.

Is it even possible to know for sure if people can be "absolutely trusted"?

Sadly, there arn't too many people I can put in that category. I've been burned so many times.
Iwas brought up in a religous family, went to religous schools and was fed the stories of the saints and the love conquers all, god has his reasons, blah blah BS. Dispite seeing more than enough evidence to prove otherwise I fell for it, and the prevailing theory that if if I had a problem with someone, it must be my fault, and I must be doing something wrong.

My experience is similar to undercaffeinated. I do not give away personal information much anymore, particularly not at work.

I have learned to be less trusting. I can still be too trusting but I have to be careful. For one, never trust strangers. I don't give people money in the streets, I don't help anyone really because they could be lying or trying to scam me. I don't buy from anyone online except for on places like etsy or ebay and I did buy something from someone on fetlife and I have gotten free stuff from people online from forums when they give them away. I also don't like to tell people what I think of someone else if they ask because I am afraid they could just be asking me just so they can go to the person and tell them what I said about them. It took me months to learn that in high school when it kept happening. Unless it's a friend, then I tell them.

I have also been used online by someone and he thought he could be my friend to get something out of me and when that didn't work, I never heard from him again. I was very hurt and I have not been back to that forum ever since and it's been over two years now and I will never trust anyone else on that forum again. I will just push anyone away if they want to be my friend if I do ever go back.

I have also been friends with people who were mean to me online and then we be friends and then they go back to being mean again and I have been friends with people who loved to troll and then they all of a sudden turned on me. Yeah never trust internet trolls because they can turn on you. But yet I didn't dump the others who admitted to me they love doing it. Also never trust people who were once mean to you and then are all of a sudden nice to you.

As a child, kids would play tricks on me and laugh at me. One of them even made me eat a licorice and then after I did, they laughed and told me this girl sat on it and farted and they told these 6th grade bullies about it. They would even try and make me eat something that I knew was in their mouth so they told me to go give it to my brothers and then go back so I did. Now I realize they were probably tricking me into giving them something that was in their mouths and I just gave it to them because I was told to. I didn't understand their reason behind it. I am sure my brothers didn't eat it either because it was wet. The girls told me I had to give it to them or I would have to go home. So I maybe ran home like seven times just to give them candy that was in their mouths. Then in 7th grade, I was hesitant to put anything in my mouth anyone would give me. this one girl tried to hand me something and I didn't know what it was so I showed it to a staff person and it turned out to be a drug. She girl got suspended for three days for having drugs. If it weren't for the bullies, I would have taken that drug thinking it was food because the other girl told me she had a piece and it tastes good. I wouldn't even accept food from anyone because I didn't know if they did something to it. Only time I accepted it is if I saw them handing it to everyone else. Then I would know it was safe. In high school, someone gave me a piece of candy strip that melts in your mouth and I wouldn't put it in my mouth until she opened it herself and put a piece in her mouth. Then I knew it was safe so I did it too.

I can still be too trusting and gullible because I can't tell when someone is lying. But I don't think I am trusting enough to be scammed because I am so worried about it happening.