MoonDust wrote:Perhaps you're very observive or perhaps you're just lucky to meet the right people at times. It's not always like that, though. How can you know there is a mad man behind the layers of a smile and kind voice? I don't everything in the world, but if there is one thing I know it's that some people are better at hiding than others. Some people are open to the surroundings and the people around them, while others are closed up, even disguise with a friendly smile. Not that I've encountered it before, usually I see through most people. I met a guy once. Don't exactly know how to explain it, but I had this feeling from the moment I met him that I shouldn't trust him. I put it aside of course since I hate judging people before I know them. After all, I was right about it. He was not a trustable person, and less than that, he was... idk, fucked up. But what I actually tried saying before is that more can hide under the layers, we are complicated creatures, humans always have. (I'm trying so hard not to get too deep xD Cause nobody truly understands me when I start with my deep poetic stuff xD )
I'm not saying that there aren't exceptions; just that
most people aren't all that hard to judge. I feel I am right about a person much more often than not... but i don't claim to be right
all the time. Heck, as I said, I
have encountered people I liked who proved later
not to be trustworthy. It's the other way around I've never encountered; I've never been wrong (as far as I can recall) about judging a person too
harshly. I have never met a person who I've had to spend a lot of time around who proved later to be a (at least significantly) nicer, more trustworthy person than I'd earlier estimated.
I have however, as you said, been fooled by the 'smiles and kind voice' type of persn more than once (at least from someone not worthy of trust; not necessarily someone who was insane) and have endured my share of disappointments and betrayals. I may not have sounded it, but I am actually an overly trusting person by nature, and as a result some such people have even stolen quite a bit from me by borrowing and never returning. This has not happened more than a handful of times, but this handful did me enough harm all by themselves.
Hell, one was even a person I'd trusted to tie me up! Stole all my money and left me! Fortunately he hadn't tied me so well that I couldn't get away after some time and effort, nor had he hurt me physically. It was however the very last time i ever let myself be tied up by anyone. This was in 2000.
As for the madman scenario, I find that extreme an example to be unlikely though not of course impossible. It's hard for a crazy person as you describe to act sane
all the time. Usually (as in the case of characters like the Newtown or Aurora shooters), there has proved to be something rather 'off' about people like that which people around them noticed. Maybe I wouldn't have known they were potential mass murderers, but something about them would still have more than likely screamed to me, "I'm a nut! Stay away from me." I have in fact met people that bothered me like that ( I think we all have). None afaik ever killed anyone, but the bad vibes were there telling me that they were potentially violent and nto so hard to set off, and i tend to avoid such people if at all possible.
Of course, then there are the usually nice people that just suddenly snap and change abruptly; there is often no predicting those.
But I have never met a person I disliked that I regretted disliking; not once. And, really, that is really what the saying "You can't judge a book by its cover" is supposed to be disproving; it's point is that people are often nicer than we at first suppose. And as far as I am concerned, that meaning of that saying is - if one is sufficiently careful, unbiased, and observant, that is - pure drivel.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...