You know what they let you know.

As usual, people were shocked and surprised when 20-year-old Dylan Quick attempted a killing spree at the Cy-Fair campus of Lone Star College in Texas. A neighbor says Quick was always outside doing something with his Dad. They’re “good people.”

We assume because we see people doing normal things that they are normal people, or non-threatening, anyway. Why? Why do we keep assuming what we see is all there is to see? Don’t we ALL keep certain things private? Even secret? Maybe we don’t all harbor plans to stab people at random, but haven’t we all fantasized, even once, about killing a co-worker, a relative, a neighbor? Maybe only once, for a few minutes, we visualize ending a relationship we can’t avoid by ending the person. Then, of course, we feel a little guilty about having such unhealthy thoughts and of course we NEVER admit to anyone we really, really wanted to shoot our boss for humiliating us in front of everyone, or our husband/wife for cheating, or our neighbor for letting his dogs bark incessantly…

We all know those thoughts, as intense as they might be, are simply temporary rushes of adrenalin turned to mental movies.

What about the other things we hope no one ever finds out? What about actual activities, behaviors, feelings, we hide from everyone? We all have them, and we all hide them. Why do we find it so shocking when we realize someone ELSE is hiding dark behaviors?

People let us see what they want us to see, for the most part. Please don’t think you KNOW someone because you see them working in the yard or the next cubicle. People can live together for years, decades, and never know everything about the other person. Let’s be reasonable about how well we know each other and stop saying silly things like “He was always so nice.”