Whom can we trust in today's society where technology puts such a buffer between people that we sometimes forget there's a real person on the other end of the phone call or on the other side of the IM window?
Well, my personal philosophy is to trust everyone until that person proves they cannot be trusted. I am not advertising that we all tell our innermost secrets to every stranger, but rather that if something isn't a major piece of information that we be honest about what we think and feel. Giving guarded answers to everything doesn't allow for anyone to learn who you really are, so then there is always some chance that there will be a falling out later down the road when you have come to consider yourselves 'good friends' and you actually start opening up.
If you trust a person with small, superficial secrets for a while and aren't betrayed, then you can move on to offering a few (not too many) secrets that are a little more personal. These might be memories from childhood or other secrets that, while you wouldn't make them public, they are removed from your present sufficiently enough that if they got out it wouldn't be the end of the world.
It should be a progression, but the progression has to start with some form of initial trust. Something like a small business investment (though I am loathe to use a business metaphor about friendship, since the two seem rather antithetical). That trust can then be allowed to grow or shrink depending on how things proceed with that person.
Oh, and someone who gossips to you about others most probably gossips about you to others, so be wary.
Oh, and if you haven't read "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, you probably should. It's a really, really, really, really good short story.
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