Same here Elsa (I've been screwed over by people I thought were my friend). And even after I learn the hard way, it still happens, even when my alarm bells are slapping me in the face with red flag after red flag. I think I'm perceptive of people too, but I don't call them out on their b.s. as often as I have the right to. I wish I did that more often -- call people out on their b.s., even if they deny it. I never wanted to help jerks become better people. They're bad people. They don't want to change. Their comfortable in their own pain. They swim in it. Til it prunes their fingers.

We have machines that help us see people's natures -- online social media platforms. Onward has a point; there are some crafty buggars out there who are experts at handling their public image and being deceitful. They just know how to manipulate people really, really, well. They can sense the person's vulnerability (even online), and troll the hell out of that poor person, before the person realizes they've been duped.

But like you, I follow the path of, "if people are genuinely kind to me and are good people," then I learn to trust them because I know they have my best interest at heart. Finding those people is hard. Esp. online. So many disingenuous people online (and in real life).

I just though of a Dorothy Parker quote, "what other people think of me, is none of my business." I agree with Parker to a certain extent. What the jerks think of me, is none of my business...until it interferes with my happiness, as it has been these past five years. I can't get anywhere in the creative communities that I once belonged to and thrived in, because of some rather vindictive, nasty, superficial, jerky, people. And to those people, I saw, "Argo ***** yourself." *middle finger*