I had a friend visit me a while back. She stayed with myself and my husband in our first floor apartment. During that time we encountered something together that I had become very accustomed to- inordinate amounts of noise from the apartment directly above us. I didn't know 'what' exactly the noise was but mostly it took the form of huge amounts of repeated heavy thumping on the floor (my ceiling). I told her I didn't know if it was abuse or something else going on but we live in a 'not very good area' and (sadly, I know) you let things like that go after awhile. I said it might be an abusive boyfriend, but I really had no clue and not enough reason to act on the 'noise' to lodge a formal complaint. No one ever screamed, so if they weren't complaining neither was I.
One day as we returned from an afternoon jaunt during that visit there was a youngish man standing out front having a cigarette. He was weasel-faced and over-weight. He didn't look dangerous so much as distasteful to me. As we exited my car my friend saw him and asked if I knew whether he was the 'boyfriend' living upstairs. She was a very intuitive person generally. I didn't know and said so. You don't really socialize with all your neighbors in a 20 unit building. Or I don't.
Anyway, weeks later the same guy was out front smoking when I came home with tons of groceries and no husband at home to help carry them inside. When I lugged the first load up, he was going in and held the door for me. We wound up talking. He lived on the first floor with his male partner and was actually (so far as I could tell) very nice, soft-spoken, and personable. We chatted about good places to get Friday night fish fry in the city. I know what apartment he lives in now and it's a very peaceful door to pass by. Later I also discovered that the 'noise' upstairs was caused by a 160 lb pit-bull mix with separation anxiety issues, but the people inside that apartment were for the most part fine. I think it goes to show that appearances are infinitely deceiving and assumptions are not to be trusted most times.
In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy (and having recently read an after the fact expose on the gun-man) I was reminded of this incident. People's looks don't mean much. I always knew that but I think many forget or simply accept what they see. Even I forget at times... Bother to learn why things happen. Find the reason before you judge rather than creating your own reality. If Adam Lanza had made 'a' friend or been noticed especially by Anyone that horrible shooting may never have happened.
