I think I get you, Nadia. It's a delicate balance to strike--not baring knives, not seeing the devil behind every tree, yet giving benefit of the doubt. Personally, I try as much as possible to trust folks until they give me a reason not to trust them, but I _don't_ turn off my radar/instincts, which are pretty well-tuned.

Mileage, of course, varies, and my life experience is that of a lower middle class Anglo Southerner with the concomitant WASPish tendencies but with healthy reminders from family that religion/spirituality and the self-identifying that goes along with it is, at the end of the day, nobody's business but the individual's.