The man didn't trust me. He told me so.

"It's not just that I don't trust you. I don't trust nobody," he declared.

I was trying to buy gasoline and wanted to fill my tank to capacity in order to track gas mileage. Thus, I had no idea what the cost would be until the tank was full.

He insisted I pay first.

Even after trying to show him my driver's license and registration and telling him I wrote for the newspapers just down the street, he wouldn't budge.

I wasn't used to that way of doing business. And I surely wasn't used to being treated with suspicion.

Older folks can remember the days when a handshake sealed the business deal. We grew up in a much different era.

And maybe that's why a disproportionate number of senior adults become victims of scammers. A lot of elderly people are perhaps a bit too trusting, and they sometimes get burned.

But there has to be a common-sense balance between trusting everyone and trusting no one.

Society in general has become more cynical. How often do we hear people lament that all politicians are "crooks" or are not worthy of our trust.

Such expressed sentiments seem to be part of our culture.

They're folklore. Because if the records are examined, we will find, on an individual basis, most office holders are re-elected multiple times, even by the people who say politicians are dishonest crooks.

I recall a few months ago the derision expressed by neighbors and friends when they read of Allentown's stricter fines for quality-of-life violations, such as double parking and skateboarding.

"City Council is well-intended and can pass all the bills they want and increase the fines sky high, but the police won't follow through and enforce," one friend, a city resident, noted.

My experience has been that folks don't trust city officials and police to do their jobs. Unfortunately, some of that attitude is justified, but some is just cynicism raising its head once again.

Like the gas station manager, a local shoe repairman also trusts nobody. He, too, freely admitted his mistrust.

When I took a pair of high-heeled shoes into the shop to have the little rubber heel tips replaced, he refused to take the shoes without my leaving a 40 percent deposit.

Those tiny rubber heels cost a dollar not that long ago. I've had many replaced over the years, often while I waited.

But this man was charging $10 and wanted almost half of that as a deposit. I had to leave with my shoes because I had no money with me.

For exercise, I had walked to the shop and wasn't carrying a purse.

Just as some business owners don't trust their customers, many consumers don't trust the business world.

"Just look at their ads," one man explained. "We're lied to a lot."

Indeed.

On the other hand, my husband and I have encountered wonderful people who trusted us enough to take us, complete strangers, into their homes for meals or even lodging when we were traveling.

And right now, we have products and a borrowed tool from a local metal company, even though we have not yet paid for anything.

"I trust you," the co-owner told us. "You can pay for the metal pieces when you bring back the tool."

Now that's a business we would recommend to anyone.

From decades of life experience I have learned something interesting about trust: Often the people who don't trust anyone are not trustworthy themselves.

According to medical research, people who lack trust are generally unhappy. To be happy, we need to trust our fellow man.

I choose happiness.