This paper presents a novel security technique to mitigate RREQ flooding attacks in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) using a trust estimation function integrated within the Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol. It addresses the vulnerabilities of MANETs, characterized by their lack of a centralized infrastructure, by classifying nodes based on their trust levels into three categories: friends, acquaintances, and strangers. The proposed model enhances detection of malicious nodes and improves network resource management by utilizing a local counter and delay queue mechanism to adjust for high node mobility.