My great aunt’s husband. I had a bad feeling about him the moment I met him when I was a kid. Turns out he was a paedophile that got two of his granddaughters pregnant and was sent to prison. He died a few years ago and the family held a wake for him and I had to explain why I wanted nothing to do with him. WTF.
A wake was still held for him?! Ya no shit you didn’t want to go.
What is a wake?
More or less a celebration of someones’ life that is less formal than a typical funeral.
https://www.funeralpartners.co.uk/help-advice/after-a-funeral/what-is-a-funeral-wake/
Yes. Customer. Was clearly smooth talking con man others aspire to be. No one else believed me. Or questioned how he was going to set up the kind of construction operation he claimed to run. Literally weeks after moving to the area.
Boss took the bait. Even introduced the guy to other friends and customers. Guy promised them all a bunch of work but needed down payments for materials. Vanished about a month after the checks cleared.
Russell Brand and the recent revelations that he’s abusive and probably a rapist.
He gave me danger vibes from the very beginning, all the way back to 2008ish. I was actually surprised when it broke news this year; I had assumed he’d been caught way earlier and was already through the “apologizes” / stays off social media for 6 months / comes back “enlightened” / media forgets about his crimes cycle.
Wow, been a while since there was an Onion article targeted so squarely for me. What a fit.
I mean this could have been a clue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Russell_Brand_Show_prank_calls
There was this guy I met at the dog park who talked nicely to everybody, especially to the ladies. He would be the kind to always greet you, offered to share his snacks. He seemed to always be at the center of the conversation.
He tended to orbit around my now gf and for a long time he forcefully sticked with us, all good there at the beginning. But as soon as I started going out with her his behavior changed. Instead of being a direct ass to me he tried to monopolize my girlfriend’s attention, being overly attentive, stomping over me when I was talking, always trying to dominate the conversation.
Now, his true color started to show when I confronted him when he was trying to impose his lifestyle on others.
He attempted to get a mutual friend to drink with him, which is by no means bad, the problem was than this mutual friend was a recorying alcoholic.
He tried to coherse her by using social pressure, saying that you should enjoy (which is true, but he doesn’t get a say in how anyone else “enjoy” THEIR LIVES), but I standed against it. The few times we drank together I was able to keep her from overdrinking, sooooo he started to invite her without acquaitances.
Long story short:
- He got our mutual friund hooked again to the point of losing her job.
- I untintentionally got the best of him, such as “women are less value than the historical sites they destroy in feminist rallies” and regarding his own girlfriend who doesn’t want to have kids “she is to young to know that”. He once asked this out of nowhere “how old do you think they are?”, whes referring to two teenagers who were clearly 15 at best.
- It turns out that majority of the dog owners dislike this guy. But, no one ever said anything because we all thought he was well liked in the cammunity.
There’s a thing called the Abilene paradox. A family is hanging out when one of the suggests having dinner in Abilene. It’s a hot day and a long drive, but nobody wants to be left out, so they all agree. After a terrible dinner, they all reveal their frustrations at the event when the person who suggested it notes that it was the first thing they thought of, as they thought everyone else was bored.
Thus, everyone sits in wonder at how they all convinced each other to do something nobody among them wanted to do.
It’s fun how often that includes hanging out with someone.
Sounds like a guy who used to be at my D&D table.
Abilene paradox doesn’t exist. That’s a failure of communication and a benign dishonesty with each other. State you’re bored and check the room before making everyone go on a journey. Get to an understanding before making plans.
You have fundementally misunderstood the paradox.
Person A wanted to please person B and suggested a given action. Person B assumed person A wanted that action and wanted to please them, so they agreed. Nobody wanted the action, nobody was forced to take the action, everyone had a chance to deny the action, nobody even necessarily lied. People wanted to please others and everyone did something nobody wanted to do.
Yes, it is a failure of communication. Specifically, it’s a false consensus, where everyone misunderstands the opinions of the wider group. Even more specifically, it’s the Abilene paradox, where everyone acquiesces to the misunderstood desire of the wider group.
In the specific context of the OP, nobody liked the guy, but everyone thought everyone else liked the guy. They didn’t want to openly insult someone everyone liked, so everyone kept quiet, so nobody realised nobody liked the guy and nobody told him to go away. It’s the paradox in action.
I guess I still misunderstand because it still sounds like no one asked any questions about why or whether it was of interest. Mindless following is only a paradox when sensibility is regained and someone asks basic questions.
No one should ever mindlessly follow a group. That’s how people follow GPS into a lake when common sense should alert them far before catastrophe.
You want others to like you. You want others to be happy. You put your own desires aside for the benefit of another. It’s not mindless, it’s selfless.
You make an assumption about a person, and they never give you cause to doubt your assumption. It will take you a long time for you to think your assumption might be wrong. After all, they agreed to it, so they must enjoy it, right? And they invited you to do this thing they like with them, so you don’t wanna bring the mood down by refusing.
It’s obvious in hindsight, or from a third person omniscient perspective like we have, but in the moment? It happens. It shouldn’t, and that’s why it’s a paradox.
See also: Peer pressure, false consensus, “Don’t rock the boat”
I knew the guy vaguely. He was a relative by marriage to a friend of mine so I had seen him. He applied for work where I was and his story didn’t really add up. If you read between the lines it sounded like he was fired for stealing. He was very extroverted and could crack a joke so people liked him. I didn’t.
I recommended not hiring the guy but we did. Stole stuff, picked fights, was lazy, did this “game” where he would take something of his coworkers and hide it. Eventually mouthed off to our main supplier, right in front of all the underlyings. So yeah no raw materials and the plant shutdown for a week.
Of course. I’ll just speak generally instead of specific stories.
Judging people based on their charisma alone is a terrible approach. Many likable people are great, but others just say what they know other people want to hear. People pleasers that will always choose the popular option, not the “right” one… And some people can be very talented at using manipulative tactics to gain support even though they spread a lot of pain. The classic popular bully.
The reverse can also be true. Some extremely uncharismatic/unpopular people are amazing at heart. And can be trusted to do what’s right even if it’s unpopular.
That’s why it’s best to not make knee-jerk or immediate judgements. Listen to your gut, pay attention to details, and try not to let the opinion of others influence your opinions or decisions too much.
Thanks for your opinion, ChatGPT.
Just writing from the heart. I take that as a major compliment though! Thanks! Might help you to know that I write for a living.
You are able to make paragraphs. That’s what gave you away ;-)
About 10 years ago we lived near this family that were friends with our family. The couple was a little older than my wife and I but not by much. The wife and my wife liked to hang out, but whenever I went over to their house, it seemed like the husband was very flirtatious with my wife. No huge red flags or anything, just joking a lot and laughing a lot and seeming interested. I didn’t really say anything to my wife, but I always had a bad feeling about the dude. I think she thought he was just being friendly. We moved away from there for many years but ended up moving back about 3 years ago. We didn’t really live in exactly the same area, so my wife and the other wife chatted from time to time, but didn’t really hang out. She did call my wife though when her husband started cheating on her with someone from work. He apparently was very open about flirting with other women and when she found out he wouldn’t stop seeing/sleeping with the girl from work. She told my wife that he told her he always regretted that they had as many kids as they did (4) and that it was her fault. So, turns out all my bad feelings about this dude ended up being true. The really crazy part is that the dudes wife still won’t leave him, even though he is basically openly cheating at this point. It’s sad. He’s such a loser.
His wife is also a loser.
My sister’s ex. Though a lot of her friends had the feeling, he sure as hell charmed her and my parents. Dude was a manipulative cokehead who stole thousands from her. She’s fine now but fuck that guy.
Deployed to Iraq cross leveled to a different unit. One of the staff sargents at this unit, who I didn’t know at all, just had a super creepy touch children type look and vibe about him. I knew some shit was going to go down with this guy.
There were two privates, both super young like 18-19, married to each other in this unit. Turns out he slept with the wife and it came out right as we were getting into country.
The Army pretty much straight disappeared that Staff Sgt. I didn’t see him again for like 8 months. Not even around the billeting. I wish I had said something before all that went down. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Quite the contrary. I had a good feeling about the principal of my sons new school, and he was part of the reason why we went for the school.
He didn’t last another year there. First he was not seen for months, and now we know that he was convicted for possession of child porn.
Until then I generally had a feeling that I could assess people quite well. Now, that feeling is shattered.
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Yea, one was arrested for sodomizing his adopted child. The other one was arrested for showing himself to a minor
Holy shit
My mother in laws friend was a roided out prison guard who had zero empathy. He was very kind to people but just could not understand when anyone had a hard time with anything. I fixed his computer and he refused to pay me because it looked easy so he figured I wasn’t really working.
When his wife asked for a divorce he strangled her so hard it broke her neck. He then held her under water in the bath tub for almost an hour just to be sure. Then he tried to end himself by jumping off the second story of their house but survived with a back injury.
MIL actually showed up to court as a character witness. He spends most if his time these days in “protective custody” because a lot of the other inmates know him from when he was a guard. We still get letters from him and he is still a dickhead.
My dad was a security guard at a supermax prison. He said, “You have to deal with the nastiest and vile people you’ve ever thought of… And then there’s the inmates.”
Your dad sounds cool asf
no my gut feelings are always wrong, some free advice for you scammers out there
If someone is nice that doesn’t know you they want something. Which most of the time is fine, maybe all they want is to not feel lonely. If it isnt crystal clear that what they want is that or something like that be on guard. People aren’t very open with strangers passes the age of 4 years old.
If someone wants to include you in any kinda deception get out of the situation.
Be aware of any attempt to size you up. Are they trying to figure out how much money you have, are you the type to go to the cops, do you have any easy blackmail routes. “Oh what kinda work do you do?” Is a classic.
It all comes down to sex money or loyalty. Anyone trying to go after you wants some combo of the three. The person who is not attracted to you, doesn’t care what fancy toys you have, and will only tell you about their religion/cult/whathaveyou if you ask about it is the one you can trust.
Lastly “let me talk it over with my wife” is pretty much going to get you out anything. Anyone being honest will be fine with that answer to pretty much any suggestion. If I invite a friend to say a BBQ I want him to bring his wife if I am going to try to sell you the Eiffle Tower I know it is just that much work scamming two vs one.
Two actually…
Jian Ghomeshi - Something about him told me he’s trying way too hard to project the feel of cool, smooth, groovy and suave. Just had a creepy feeling about the guy the whole time, was waiting for the news basically. Then it came out that he was violently assaulting and raping women.
Kevin Spacey - Having grown up with sociopaths, I could see right through the guy. Trying and not doing a great job of acting human, in the way somebody who’s not really human thinks humans act.
I didn’t save it but about a year or so before the news broke about him I saw a reddit comment of a guy claiming to have seen him (Spacey) in a South East Asian with drunk boys, boys boys not 20 year olds, in a private booth at a restaurant in a redlight district.
Guy freaked out when people asked him more questions and seemed very unnerved by the whole thing.
If you’ve got Hollywood money and you’re not out of the closet, you wouldn’t be doing that in public, not even in SE Asia. He’d get mobbed. The boys would be visiting his hotel room / rented villa.
Take your word on this.
That’s an astute observation.
I always find it interesting what can happen if you let an idea have enough credence just to look at it and see if it’s plausible, and then immediately realize what the slightest scratching of the surface that it isn’t!
I never watched Ghomeshi’s program and never had a personal opinion about him one way or the other prior to the allegations, but I think it’s important to be clear and accurate when making these statements (because inaccuracies weaken/discredit the whole). While it came out Ghomeshi is a misogynist who engaged in sexual harassment and enjoys violence against women, it also came out at trial that the women conspired together beforehand when they made the allegations of rape against them. Creep? Yes. Misogynist? Yes. Stay away from him? Definitely. Rapist? Not proven.
Totally fair point, and it’s actually something I align with. We often judge people based on spotty information delivered by questionable news reports and it’s not fair to make a condemnation of somebody based on those.
However, my distrust of his character was appropriate, when the news came out it confirmed that guy was not what he was presenting as his image.
Yupp and it still messes with my head. A friend’s friend was hanging out with our group for the first time and he was super chill but the way he spoke just seemed really off and I couldn’t explain it. As we ended the night his friend was gonna take off by himself as my buddy wanted to chill for the night. The next morning the guys sister calls my buddy and tells him that her brother hung himself. I know logically i couldn’t have known but my gut told me he shouldn’t have been leaving without my buddy. No drugs or alcohol were involved that night we were all 100% sober…
