People you think you know

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Let’s start this thread in MPSIMS, although it has the potential to travel. It’s a post I never thought I’d have to make, but I need to share it.

I have a former co-worker, somebody I am close to. We still exchange calls and e-mails. We are even in the same Fantasy Football League. We spent a metric ass load of time together in 2002 when we rolled a new desktop to a 1000 person government division, and even more in 2004 when we took them from Novell to NT as our LAN OS. We traveled to many of the field office sites together. Hell, when we flew to our west coast office they had booked us in adjoining seats. Yes, they put the 6’2” guy and the 6’7” guy together on a plane. We did not even complain, we just chatted the entire way, we were that close. I have no idea ho many meals we shared, probably more than five hundred. This is all background as to how well I thought I knew this guy.

Last Saturday night he drove to a city in a bordering state, where he thought the girl he met on the internet was waiting. The girl from the chat room portrayed herself as 14, yeah, fourteen years old. It turns out the 14 year old was really the chief of police. Now in odd symmetry, he is facing 14 criminal charges. Word is the Feds are also looking into this as he made contact from a government computer.

The office was speechless when we got the news. Several of the guys I work with said flat out that if he had been a neighbor, they would have had no problem leaving their kids in this guy’s care. Nobody ever picked up a bad vibe. We understand that the evidence, however, is damning. I know, “innocent until proven guilty,” and all that. That is not why I am here.

Let’s skip the trial and go right to the verdict. We shall posit that he is, indeed, guilty. Now, that said, how the holy hell did he fool all of us? I am now questioning every person I ever left my children in the care of. I mean, if he could fool me, why not them? This has really shaken my belief that I have some idea about others and what they might be like inside. I am questioning the motives of everybody that came in contact with my kids, and they are grown. I am shaken to my core.

So there, my burden has been shared with strangers. Please feel free to comment, or add your own stories of shocking revelations.

I thank you for your time.

2

It is not unusual at all for people to find post pubescent members of the opposite sex attractive. It just takes some serious stupidity/issues to act on that attraction.
What I am saying is the ex-friend was more of a moron than a monster. (though I would call him monsterous if he weant through with the meating to anything sexual, it wouldn’t technically be paedophilia, and in a few civilised countries it would even be legal).
Also, how would you expect to find out from someone you know that they had such feelings, they aren’t exactly the sort of thing that might come up in conversation, and none of you being teenage children you wouldn’t be subject to his perverse interests.

3

Thanks. I am not convinced that fourteen is post pubescent, more like trans pubescent IMHO. And while I respect that only acting on the urge makes you monsterous, he crossed state line to try. That, to me, makes him a monster.

Your last paragraph goes to my core. I want to sense that my pal likes underage chicks. The fact that I can’t sense that disappoints me. The need to protect them trumps all other feelings.

4

Why does crossing a state border make the crime worse?

5

Like many of my coworkers thought all homosexual men behave like Jack from Will & Grace. External behavior does not represent whats going on inside. I’m pretty sure everyone here has more than a few people they despise but have to deal with politely from time to time and that person has little if any idea what you really think of them.

Many of my customers think I am some kind of angel swooping in to their rescue, even though in a few cases I get back in my truck, drive a couple hundred yards down the street and then scream obscenities while fantasizing about flailing them to death with 9 USB mice.

Mouse o’ Nine Tails

Band name?

6

For me, not so much. For the Feds, ask one that wanders by. Some things are ameliorated by crossing a border, others, not.

7

Sorry, that just needed to be bolded.

8

Yeah, I passed on that. Thanks sheep guy!

9

It’s a Freudian habit for Mr. Beardless as evidenced in the “Thumb stuck up my ass” thread.

I’d make a cool little linky thingie, but that’s beyond my meager tech skills.
“No, I’d expect it meant you were affraid of Gay Rape at the meating or something like that.
“I’d be there just sitting on my hands” would have the meaning you wanted from my point of view.”

10

A few years back, a famous singer ODd. We were talking about it at work and the receptionist (if intelligence was daylight hours, she’d be shorter than a Christmas Eve) started saying that all musicians are junkies. The Safety Manager, whose night job is as second trombone in the town’s band, said not all, she insisted, he pointed out that she was calling HIM a junkie, she said “oh no, I’m just saying all musicians are junkies” “but I am a musician” “well, and all musicians are junkies”. I did mention she’s not very bright, didn’t I?

Anyway, at about that point I touched him on the arm and said “that’s OK, Pepe, according to her I’m a psychopath.” “you are?” “yeah, and a stalker and a 14yo boy and an axe murderer.” he stares, light dawns “internet and role playing games?” “yep” “never would have guessed” “the games or the psycho part?” “oh, I know all you lab people are psycho, I mean the games”

Most of my free time is spent playing RPGs on the net. How many of my coworkers would guess that? Probably none. I had to share an apartment with one for six months, he actually saw me, asked what was I doing and couldn’t believe me when I explained about “online games”. He believes in online banking, VPN and chatrooms but doesn’t believe there are such things as “games you can play online with many other people”.

My mother has known me… for as long as I’ve known her. When I was 35 I informed her that I don’t like Romanic Art and she actually had the gall to take offense. When I was 10, I figured that “old big church that I like” was Gothic, “old small church I don’t like” was Romanic and “old small church I like” was Templar :stuck_out_tongue: And for 25 years, my mother didn’t have the slightest notion that most stuff from her favourite art period makes me want to run away screaming.

You never know everything about anybody. You don’t need to.

11

Baaa. At least the don’t call me Bippy the sheep shagger :slight_smile:

12

brownie, a very similar thing just happened to us here. DH is a middle school teacher and someone he has worked with for the past 7 years was arrested last month for soliciting sex from a teenage boy via the Internet. He was arrested when he showed up at the boy’s house. The police also found thousands of kiddie porn photos and videos on his computer - some of the kids in the images were reported to be as young as 5.

This is a guy DH worked with every day. They were friends. They went out for beers sometimes. We’ve both been to his house. He’d worked for the school system for many years. We had no idea, and neither did anyone else, including people who’d known him for much longer. It’s sad and shocking and obviously he hid his activities for a long time.

The only thing I could say that was a bit ‘different’ about the man was that he was in his late 40s and had never married or had a serious relationship with any adult that I know of. I figured he was just gay and not open about it.

I wish there was such a thing as ‘pedo-dar,’ but obviously there isn’t. I think the only thing parents can do is talk to and educate their children about this sort of thing and make sure they know they can (and should) speak to you immediately should anything untoward happen.

13

My theory is the attraction dates back to when they first started having sexual thoughts, they were attracted to 13 year old girls then and they still are now.

Of course many of my first sexual attractions were Playboy and Penthouse models, which I considered “old” when I was 12. And I’m still attracted to older women.

14

Seems to me it means that the guy knew he was doing something wrong, and put extra effort into trying to do it in a place where no one he knew could see him.

15

Not in the same vein as a pedophile, but along the same lines as the title of the thread implies, let me share with you the story of an old friend of mine. I’ll call him Buddy.

Buddy was part of our circle of friends at university. We were a great group of guys, if I do say so myself–sure, we studied as necessary, but my memories of the guys consist mostly of watching TV sports, betting on our NFL football pool, and playing on the same softball team. And as you might expect from a bunch of guys attending university shortly after “Animal House” was released, we drank plenty of beer, and we did plenty of girlwatching.

In fact, we did the beer and the girlwatching perhaps more than the sports. We were never rude to the young ladies under our gaze though–the idea was to look without looking like you’re looking. Still, sotto voce comments such as, “She’s got a balcony you could do Shakespeare from,” and “How did she get into those tight jeans; and more importantly, how do I get into her jeans?” were not uncommon from any of us, Buddy included.

Anyway, after graduation, most of us stayed in Toronto (where we’d gone to school) and got jobs. Not Buddy. He went to Vancouver. The rest of us slowly lost touch with each other, as jobs and weddings and adulthood overtook us. Until one day about seven or eight years after we graduated. I got an unexpected call from one of the guys, telling me to read that day’s newspaper.

It was a story about Buddy, and it wasn’t good news. It seems that he was gay. He had gone to Vancouver, got involved in the gay community, and contracted AIDS. Yep, Buddy was dead. The guy who used to drink beer and play sports and make the comments about the passing girls, was gay. The newspaper story was a feature on the state of AIDS research, and mentioned a few other sufferers along with Buddy, in an effort to put a human face on the tragedy of the disease. Still, the story had a picture of Buddy we all remembered–one taken of him one day at school, and with the big grin that would betray the joke he was about to tell.

None of us had any idea Buddy was gay. It wouldn’t have mattered, really–he was a fine second baseman and a so-so football pool player; but most importantly, he was a good friend. But it just goes to prove the implication of the thread title: you think you know somebody. Sometimes, you don’t.

RIP, Buddy. Miss you, pal.