Trusting strangers

This is a tangent to a larger post I've got festering in my brain, but I think it's turned into its own separate idea:

We all know that in general the prudent thing, for women especially, is to have a certain wariness of strange men (if you care to discuss this point, wait for my next post on the subject; for this post we're taking it as a given). I've heard a number of times of situations where the men involved take offence at this - like when a woman steps back from the curb as they pull up in their car, or waits for the next elevator, or namedrops her boyfriend, or turns up the chill as a precautionary measure, they take offence that she is apparently presuming they're rapists or they're only after one thing or whatever. I can't speak to the mindset behind this attitude or the actual trustworthiness of the people who feel this way, I've just heard from several discrete sources that it exists.

However, I'm the complete opposite in terms of my expectations. I'm always a wee bit surprised when people trust me. I start talking to a baby (my ovaries make me!) and its grownup is amused and sometimes even actively encourages the "conversation." A fellow resident whom I don't actually know holds the access-control door open for me instead of making me beep myself in. I'm short a quarter, the coffee shop lady spots me from the tip jar and says I can get it next time. The beepy security label is right on the back of the waistband of the pants - the part that's crucial to whether they gap or not - and the saleslady is all "Sure, no problem," when I ask her if she could possibly remove it.

Now, I am trustworthy. I'm not going to steal your baby or rob your apartment or shoplift your pants or cheat you out of your quarter. But people have no way of knowing that. I mean, they can probably tell by looking at me that I couldn't beat them up, but apart from that I'm still a complete stranger without any particular credentials. I know part of the reason why I'm surprised people trust me is because in childhood and adolescence they didn't because of my youth, so going into a store and not being treated like a shoplifter is somewhat novel. But mostly I'm surprised because they have no particular reason to trust me any more than anyone else.

I think it would be interesting to study this in broader society. Who are the people who expect to be trusted on the basis that they are in fact trustworthy? Who are the people who don't expect to be trusted on the basis that they are strangers? Which of these people are actually trustworthy? How much do they trust strangers? Does their empirical experience of being trusted or not affect what they expect from strangers?