Some people borrow your confidence before they have earned your trust.

Confidence is easy to lend and slow to get back. Some people move quickly into familiarity, using your name, your assurance, or your standing to open doors that earned trust would have taken far longer to open. It rarely feels sinister at the time, because speed and warmth are pleasant company. The mismatch shows up later, when something goes wrong and the credit behind it was yours.

Notice when somebody is running ahead of the relationship: introducing you as a close friend, quoting you, assuming access nobody gave. Let familiarity grow at the pace of the evidence rather than the pace of the charm.