I'm sure you have heard the saying that trust has to be earned. While this is true, it is so in an very anti-intuitive way. You earn the ability to trust another by gambling your vulnerability with them. You use all the wisdom that you've acquired thus far in life to rule out the more obvious folks and then you risk trusting someone. If they don't violate that trust, then your trust in them grows a little and the next time you trust them, the risk that they will violate your trust is a little bit less.

When the day comes that you risk trusting that person without realizing that you're risking anything at all, then the trust has been earned. But make no mistake, they didn't earn it - you did.