Yeah, usually the people I do that with are not people I've invested terribly heavily with. If they come around some more they realize that i'm trustworthy and usually are fine. Just takes time. Not all people who are skittish are people that you have to steer clear of. However, it is important to remember that those are often signs of insecurity. Unfortunately, insecurity often has a fairly toxic effect on friendships, so you may want to watch how personally involved you become, or at the very least, realize that it may be an unequally balanced friendship.
As far as avoiding people who are high drama/low change or are likely to ignore important boundaries, some signs I've noticed include:
- people that walk up to you and without provocation or encouragement start telling you intimate details of their life.
- sharing far too much for the level of friendship/acquaintanceship you have developed. Often this means that they have found it is a way to force intimacy or a way to curry sympathy/get attention.
- people who push the boundaries of what you are physically or emotionally comfortable with and do not pay attention to your discomfort (could be someone who is in your space or guilt trips when you don't do what they want, someone who is overly possessive of you as a friend or who need ridiculous amounts of your time)
- people who are looking for a shoulder to cry on, but do not have any reciprocal interest or wish to learn anything about you.
- people who always are the victim of circumstances or other people. You need to ask yourself after awhile how they consistently are in these situations.
- people who are too ready to embrace your advice (means they'll go with whomever they talk to most recently) or who are resistant to taking any advice or list all the reasons why nothing will work in their situation.
- people that surround themselves only with others whom they consider "lower" than themselves in some way.
- people who find reasons to be critical of everyone around them, while championing you. They are looking for someone or something to save them from their circumstances. When they find you can't do it, you will become the recipient of their blame.
- people who try to illicit information from you that you don't feel good about sharing.
- anyone who wants to use you as their moral conscience instead of thinking it out for themselves. When they are upset, their choices are only rooted in their feelings towards you at the time, rather than what is right. Any good that has been done falls away because it was never truly rooted in their own beliefs.
As far as creating better boundaries, I
1) limit time I spend with people with whom there is no potential for an equal friendships/relationship, making sure they know that I only have a specific amount of time to give them (or I make it clear that there is no time to give them, depending on the situation)
2) am blunter than I normally would be because the stakes are lower. If I can help them that way, great. If not, they will go sooner.
3) remain polite, but don't ask a lot of follow-up, make-you-comfortable questions to draw them out, nor reciprocate with a lot of personal information.
4) if someone asks something that is too personal or tries to elicit contact that I don't want, I am clear about where my boundaries are. (Learned that from busking). I script myself ahead of time with words like, "I'm sorry, but I don't give out personal information to people that I don't know well." "I'm sorry, I don't hug people that I am not close to". The more cohearsive people are, the more important it is to be blunter and make those boundaries clearer without expending a lot of emotion (which can be taken as encouragement even if it is negative).
5) Limit meaningful eye contact that might be natural to most conversations with the intent of connecting to people and making them comfortable. In this case, you want to do the opposite.
In the past, I know that I have been flattered by people who display their insecurity in an outwardly confident-looking way that have told me that they've never talked about any of that stuff to anyone before. It's an appealing mix of being able to help, while feeling pleased that they would choose me for their confidante, usually mixed in with some element of attraction to me that makes me feel good. I try to steer clear of that now, as I realize it involves an element of selfishness on my part and it also usually ends badly.