Paranoia or naive innocence?
 

What end of the continuum do you think is best? Would you rather be suspicious and distrustful of people or gullible and taken for a mug?

Gullible and taken for a mug since you'd never realise it

The second: it's hard to act that way sometimes, and with certain people, but I do believe that it's nice to be nice! :)

I think I'd rather be gullible. Extreme paranoia doesn't sound very fun.

I'm sceptical of mostly everyone and I like it that way, I don't want to be taken for a mug and look at it this way, if you think good of everyone, you can only be disappointed, but if you're wary of people then there's more potential to be happily surprised by people.

I am suspicious :suspect


I judge others by my own atrocious standards

Somewhere in the middle sounds about right.

I'm the same

Precisely.

Keep 'em at bay. If you treat them all as if they want to get to know you so that they can borrow or steal from you, take advantage of you, then lie about you once you finally firm up and say 'no' , then you will not go far wrong.

Can we have the choice of neither?

I can't imagine living in a world where I was suspicious and distrustful of everyone and although I think we have all been gullible and taken for a mug at some point in our lives, its not something we would ever choose to be.

I'd lean more towards the second option of the poll but I know when to call it quits on giving people a chance. Some people are just pricks.

Ideally, yeah, but the point of this thread is to choose the lesser of the two evils (in your eyes).

.we have to choose an extreme then, Sam..?...I would rather trust and assume that someone is genuine, rather than live with paranoia and suspicion, that I think would be extremely self destructive and much worse than being open to being hurt..

a paranoid mug - that's me

you can be nice without being gullible. aslong as you are aware of the warning signs. evil people are easy to spot and you should never feel guilty for being suspicious of someone. there's a reason you are suspicious and you should always listen to your instincts, even if it's not Politically Correct.

I like distrusting people because if they end up proving me wrong then that's a bigger reward imo than just falling for anything that someone tells you.

Sure, but the whole point of this thread is to see what extreme you'd rather be. Obviously most people would opt for nice over unnecessarily apprehensive any day of the week, but opinions are a little more divided when *nice* tips into gullible naivety and not being able to see the bad in people. That's why I'm comparing both extreme ends of the continuum.

Option 2.

Did he ever mention he's a Yorkshireman? If you were ever in doubt here's proof :laugh:

I'm too skeptical, but I certain amount of cynicism is healthy.