Distrust is often the rational default even in good relationships

Evidence

The inherent problems of inconsistency over time, strategic misrepresentation, changing conditions that end or threaten to end an interaction or that radically change its stakes, and reasonable concealment make distrust potentially the correct prima facie judgment in many relationships. These problems may reduce confidence in the expectations of what parties to the relationships will do when their moments for trustworthiness come. Indeed, they must often cloud even good, trusting relationships. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 454

Categorization

• XREF: Reinforces the Hardin constraint on trust the reader names: observability is fragile, so distrust is a rational safeguard when monitoring fails — a precondition for the blindness collapse. — connects to: Modern culture simultaneously demands intimate love and makes trusting it irrational — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 350