Gee, I don’t know what movie others saw, but in TFA I saw a lonely girl clinging to the slim hope her parents were coming back, eeeking out a meager existence as a junk scavenger that was getting worse by the day if not week. The movie gave enough evidence there were few if any people she could trust. Whatever relationship she had with Unkar Plutt clearly had turned sour. It took interacting with BB, and Finn, and later Han, to realize she was waiting in vain. She wasn’t being naive, she was whistling in the dark.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/whistling-in-the-dark
Jakku makes Tatooine look like Disneyland. 😉