I was on a call recently where the topic at issue was illegal activity. One of the individuals on the call expressed surprise in learning of this behavior because the individual involved “seems so nice” and is “a family guy”. I engaged in one of my favorite activities, making everyone a little uncomfortable, by pointing out that the neighbors of serial killers often share the same sentiment.
Sure, once in a blue moon you’ll have someone advise that they felt a little creeped out by a criminal, but more often than not, there is shock and dismay. They just cannot believe that they missed all the signs. They can’t wrap their brain around the news of this illicit behavior, because everything they “knew” about the person or persons feels contradictory.
Holy fucking shit. Are you kidding me? Don’t get me wrong here. I mean, sure I get it. I lived it. I have already shared with you the notion that the people I dated must have had some redeeming quality to draw me into their web. I have some self-sabotaging tendencies, but even I haven’t been like “oh yeah, he’s a complete asshole, but I kind of like that”. Um, no.
There is so much I have to say here and I don’t want to go completely off the rails (it feels on the precipice), so I’m going to try and infuse this post with a little order.
Let’s start with going back to my call.
Everyone was quiet and there was some throat clearing. I am going to speculate right now, even though I’ve clearly told you to avoid such behavior historically. My apologies. I feel pretty close to this one though because of my own experiences, so this exception feels comfortable and reasonable. Anyway, I think there was a pervasive discomfort on the call because I was diverging from the path where we all jump down a rabbit hole together. What does said hole look like? Well, there are several possibilities, each more destructive than the last.
The first possibility is that we all uphold this notion that the CRIMINAL is indeed a good guy and had a legitimate reason for committing a crime. Don’t you shake your head at me. You KNOW this is a possibility. “He clearly was desperate”. “Maybe someone did it without him realizing”. Maybe. But still, he’s a criminal and we aren’t his defense attorneys, so that’s not our job to explore. There is some valid thinking behind the notion that good people do shitty and illegal things for a variety of reasons. It is still criminal behavior, but perhaps we are more sympathetic in our overall assessment.
The second possibility is the idea that this guy is actually a shithead and we were fooled by his outside trappings and persona. Despite the fact that the world permits nearly anyone (with exceptions, obviously) to be a parent or guardian or spouse, we still use this as a barometer for character. “He seems so normal. Well-adjusted. He has a house and kids and a golden retriever and a sedan”. Excuse me. WHAT THE FUCK?! Sorry, I had to. The real point here is that we were snowed, and we loathe that feeling, unless we can come together in solidarity. Sure, I missed what an asshole this guy is, but we ALL did. Amiright? Maybe he was amazing and he changed, since the time we met him, a few months ago.
My point is that the individuals on the call are all subconsciously seeking group-think. No one human wants to be the person who was fooled or mislead, but if they are amongst a group who all had that very experience, everything seems more palatable. When I pointed out that people often misread other people or a situation, I was drawing a line in the sand. We aren’t going to explore a million different reasons why or how. We are all just going to accept that we missed this one. And this guy likely isn’t a good guy, and if he is, it doesn’t matter, because being nice doesn’t make his behavior any more legal. You feel me here? The rabbit hole or group-think is a comfort grasping structure. I feel better with the notion of solidarity so I will make sure we are all on the same page. We will endlessly spiral in the land of ‘what if’ and never have to face the reality of the thing.
Is that true? Well, yeah. It is. Often, we dance around an issue and then immediately move onto what’s next. That sounds good in theory because we don’t dwell, but there is something else we don’t do. Any guesses? Okay. I’ll give. We don’t learn. We don’t contemplate the idea of red flags or missed opportunities and so, we end up making the same mistakes or erroneous judgments over and over again.
When I called out the typicalness of the behavior, I was highlighting it such that no one could really pretend like it wasn’t happening. Of course, I addressed things in a lighthearted fashion and/or with humor, but I was still making a pretty big deal out of the fact that, instead of focusing on what this shit head did, and next steps, we were trying to reconcile why we didn’t prevent it from occurring in the first place.
I think a disclaimer is a good place to wrap up today’s post. We often don’t know whether someone is going to morph from the person we thought we knew. There are so many reasons why someone changes. Aging, grief, trauma, anxiety, and so on. People can easily and speedily do a 180 from who we thought them to be. We don’t always have the time or breadth of emotion to throw a label on the behavior before it fully reveals itself. We might even be reeling from the thing itself too, so worrying about someone else’s reaction is not something that’s in our wheelhouse.
I’m not suggesting you should be omniscient at all. I get that these changes can happen quickly. I also understand that we are dealing with our own emotional lives outside of whatever potential trigger might have pushed that person to transform.
That said, there are red flags. There are hints. There are events and situations and behaviors that can clue us in, at least some of the time. For those situations, we need to learn to read the room a little better and act on whatever it is we see. For the rest of it, we need to learn how to react quickly and productively. Less time on ‘he seemed so nice’ and more time on ‘he’s clearly a fucker, so what now?’
😉
xo
L.
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