Some ppl are just......

The question is how do you know when people are trying to take advantage of you. Let us create a scenario. Assume thanksgiving and you and your buddies are planning to go to some nearby store to check out the gadgets. All of a sudden a bunch of girls call you and say lets walk to some mall. They convince you its better there coz there are gadget stores there and clothing stores too. The argument is made. More stores more things to look at and since you and most of your buddies in the group are straight and single, the argument looks 200% convincing. Walk with a bunch of girls and shop with them. Who knows who may end up lucky huh?

Now for the twist in the story. The girls call some other friend of theirs and get a drop to the mall and you and your buddies are stranded. You still make it to the mall because you and your buddies wanna show to the world and yourselves that, you guys would have been there anyways. Its for the double advantage not the girls....blah blah blah.

Another story, you are stuck in an economic recession. So, you had to take up this internship with a company for lower pay. You and your boss are out for lunch one day. He discusses animatedly about his previous company and about how some of the employees would not work hard enough and suddenly lets it slip that now thanks to the recession he can ask people to come and work for less. You realize that he's taking advantage of you.

My question is how does one avoid these circumstances?

We cannot become cynics to avoid these situations. Otherwise, we would never reap the benefits of the situation. In the first story, the guys did end up buying some cheap and cool stuff and in the second case, the person(read me) did end up with a full time position finally. So, I think the best way to go about these situations is just to have an open and alert mind and when something's fishy get out of it with best thing you can grab onto.