.:How Well Do You Know Someone?:.

Your story is very interesting. Before I get philosophical about it though I would like to point out that I spotted three tragedies and three appalling things.

Tragedy 1: The death of a mother.
Tragedy 2: A son betrayed by his father and losing his mother
Tragedy 3: A young man, 19 years old who now will live the rest of his life behind bars

Appalling 1: $200 dollars for a life
Appalling 2: A man who values child support money over any human especially over the mother of his son, and of course his son as well.
Appalling 3: Other people with evidence of the crime did not come forward to aid police until it was forced upon them by other influences.

This is not just one man you don't know, this is a whole cross section.

Now let me point out some facts that I feel are pertinent to your question. Most mass murderers have been described and polite, shy, and gentle. They are two people within one body. Child molesters are most often friendly to children, gentle with them, and attract them through helping them with problems they are dealing with. That is of couse before they become the over riding problem the child will deal with for the rest of their life.

However, without outside influence the inner character will normally come out with too close an association (which is why both of these types of animals tend to be loners). You can get to know someone fairly well through time. However, if there is little true intimacy (and I don't mean physical) then there is little true learning. In the end, though, I must agree with most of the posters here, If I don't want you to you will never really get to know me.

This is why it is so important that we are careful. As a college adjunct professor I make it a rule that I will never be alone with a student. They don't know me well enough and I don't know them, my reputation is on the line and I protect that. When I taught Sunday School our Church had a rule that there would always be two adults in a room with the children. I think that is brilliant. Children need to be protected. When my son was growing up he tried to become a baby sitter and few people would hire him. Although he was upset I had to admit that I would not hire a teenaged boy (or even a young adult) to babysit if I had younger children. Why? Because the percentage chance of harm happening to my child increases dramatically with a male babysitter over a female (BTW I am male and I did babysit as a teenager). It is my duty to protect my children as well as I can. This does not guarantee anything because child abuse by babysitters etc. knows no gender boundary.

I do believe age can bring some discernment. I know that I pick a far more conservative set of friends now than I did in my teenage years. Still at least one of those friends has had trouble with the law and faced sex related charges. Even now I can easily wonder what may happen with others that I consider "sane and normal".

One last word though if I may. While I cannot tell for sure whether someone is a saint or a monster. While I may not know some of the dark secrets of those I meet. I also am not willing to become a hermit and close myself off from humanity. I am not willing to become so distrustful that I will trust no one. I will protect myself and my reputation. I will try to protect those in my charge. I will not let fear of the possible ruin my life.

Sincerely

I thank you all for your replies. Honestly, looking back...if I had any notion that he needed money, I would have found a way to give it to him. He did have problems growing up, he was older than me. I knew that he smoked marijuana and drank. He went to a lot of parties that I snuck out to go to as well.

I have no intentions of letting this inhibit my future relationships with people, and it hasn't thusfar, but it would be a lie to say it never crossed my mind.

I've read Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" after this happened. It describes the effects on him during the holocaust. He describes the people around him. Many people looked at the Jewish who became part of the S.S. as lower officers and had special priviledges as bad, but in their situation, they would do anything to survive, even if it meant turning against their own people (to get more food, free time, maybe see their families again).

The last time I saw Joe, was on the street in Ravenna, very close to the murder. School had been called off, and my friend and I usually spent those days walking around town and window shopping. He seemed the same as I always had known him, looking back, there never was anything out of the ordinary about that day. It's true that you never know what you're capable of when faced with certain situations...

Unfortunately, for some people, you learn that the hard way....

IMHO, the unpredictability of people is what makes life great...Sometimes (in the case of GG) it can bring you extreme sadness and make you question your very self. Other times it can bring a sheer joy that can't be put into words...


It's the "ups and downs" that truly make life woth living....

http://website-1.com/index.shtml might give you some idea?

GreekGoddess,

I know people in a similar situation... I was very close to Brad and his family... He was a "Good Kid" that had EVRYTHING handed to him on a silver plater... no one would have guessed that at the ripe old age of 19 he would beat a man to death with a maglight he borrowed from ME! He came to my house late one night saying he had broken down a few miles outside of town and needed some more light... He came up in his girlfriends car so I gave him the light and asked him if he needed any help... He said no and he and Tonya left my house... The next day I got an ambulance call (I was a paramedic at the time) for a burn victim... When I got to the scene of the fire a pick up truck was smoking in a field... The man inside was dead... A few days later he was identified as Tonya's step-father... Brad had murdered him for what he thought would be his slice of 10 million dollars in insurance and so he could have sex with both Tonya and her mother when ever he wanted... Turns out John Freeman was killed because his wife Ronda didn't know that "K" after the number 10 meant thousand... and a "Good Kid" killed because he thought love was being able to have your girlfriend and her mom at the same time... point is everyone thought they knew Brad better then Brad knew himself and as it turns out no one knew Brad, not even his Mom and Dad...

4MidgetHtimen

GreekGoddess, I thought long and hard about your question and don't have a concrete answer.

You can know someone heart and soul, for many years, and aspects of his/her life can change they way they are. I know for a fact what being a drug addict can do to you. I lost a nephew to drugs, and I don't mean he died, the person he used to be died. His body is alive, but the soul I knew is gone. The only means he lives for is his next fix and he would do anything to get the money to buy drugs. He has AIDS and little respect for those he shares needles with, basically attempted murder.

He used to be a caring individual with many things going for him. He found drugs, started out small and they got worse. Truly the man I knew years ago does not exsist anymore.

While no one can really know the response they would give until actually faced with a situation, most people are able to have an idea of how they would react.

I believe you knew your friend as he once was, I believe he is no longer that person. Even when people change like that it doesn't lessen the relationship once shared and enjoyed.

truth be known, you never actually know anyone. you become a different person, albeit just, when you are around different people, psychcologic fact.
alternatively you could ask, "how well do you know yourself?" i don't think you can begin to answer that unless you stop learning, as new information will be continuely changing Mind, your perception of the world, and hence you.

I don't know how to express all that I think reading this.
I have been a lot of different good friends and I have ever been the feeling to not really know them (and I have known some of them since I have 4)
I think all people have "theatre" personalities, these personalities are like masks and are different for each people depending of who is in the front of them. I can't say I know the real personality of my friends and, in fact, I can't be sure to know MY real personality. How could we know someone if we are not sure to know ourselves?

Maybe the main problem of all of this is the fear that people have to discover they have not real personalities, this possibility is too horrible to be accepted.

All that I can say for you GreekGodess is that, if we don't know who we and our friends are, it stay the possibility we/they are better than we think.

bonne chance.