Individual Assignment 1: To Trust or to distrust

    My story happened during the Christmas holiday, one day, I took a bus from Hangzhou to my hometown. On the bus, there was a foreigner sitting next to me. He greeted me friendly and introduced himself to me. So we started chatting. We had a very pleasant talk during the two-hours trip so that we decided to have lunch together the next day. And we exchanged contact information.
    On the following day, the foreigner came and said his wallet was lost after we separated yesterday. I felt sorry for him and said I would pay for the lunch. However, he insisted on cooking for me since he regarded me as his friend. In order to comfort him, I accepted his invitation. Then, he asked me to lend some money to him because he needed to buy food materials for cooking. And I lent him the money. After lunch, I thought he would teach me some business knowledge as he promised before. However, he asked me to help him of translating emails from Chinese into English. What is more, during the following days, he always borrowed money from me and let me to do translations for him.
    At last, I found that he was just utilizing my sympathy and free labor while I considered him as my friend.

    Afterwards, when I think of this experience, I conclude that I am gullible. Why I trusted the foreigner even at the first time we met? Because we found we have so many common topics according to our first talk. We both like traveling and have been to some same countries. We both think the people in my hometown are not open-minded although it is an economically developed area. He told me that he always felt of hostility from the people in my hometown. I told him that I got used to make friends with people from different countries as I once studied in an international university. As Robert (2006, p.58) mentioned, I decided to trust the foreigner because I thought his words interest me and I was excited of sharing experience with him.  Moreover, we thought we built a kind of identification-based trust. (Thompson, 2009, p.133) in this trust system, trust exists because we share the same value so that we can understand and agree with each other. In addition, the foreigner told me that he is an English language teacher in the primary school where I have been to study there. Since I know the primary school well and it was a similarity between us, I felt more relaxed towards the foreigner (Robert, 2006, p.57).
    However, I trusted the foreigner so easily that I forgot to verify the truth of his identity. There is a saying goes “Men at their birth are naturally good”. And I believe in it. So I suppose everyone I meet is a good guy. Therefore, I chose to trust the foreigner and help him even we only had a talk once.

    Whereas, after I found the foreigner’s purpose, I decided not to regard him as my friend anymore. And I know it is not good to make a rash decision just based on my intuition. If I meet a new person again, even if I have a very nice conversion with him, I won’t trust him easily until I know him well.

Reference:
    Robert F. H. (2006). The Decision to Trust. Hardvard Business Review, 84(9), 55-62.
 Thompson,L.L.(2009).The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator. (4th ed.). Prentice Hall (NJ).