Aspies For Freedom

I'm not saying that people should keep their friends out of their homes, and lives. I'm not even saying that people should distrust their friends, because some people (unlike me) want and need friends to spend time with. I'm thinking about when someone wants to defend a friend when someone else comes around and says that they did something mean or wrong, but uses their past friendship to proove how the accused person is so good and "wouldn't do it". Such as, a crime report, police questioning, a fight happens between two people, ect.

     Neru-typical or not, alot of people uncontiously go for the idea that their best friends are good people and can't do any wrong at all to them or anyone else. I see Neuro typicals doing it more often, but a heck of alot of us do it to.

     For example: Some person in a room calls another person names. They just met, and the one on the recieving end becomes upset. Which is only natural given the curcumstances. Well, the friend of the name caller hears the upset person's side of the story, and doesn't believe them. The name caller, of course, lies about it. They ignore whatever proof they try to provide. This happens alot with an excuse as something alot like "I've known (so and so) for twelve years (or however long), and I know they are a good person."

     It didn't dawn on him to ask the other people in the room that were watching the name calling happen. As far as he was concerned, the person who told him about the name calling was some kind of liar making rediculess accusations about his 'innocent' pal. He's "known him for twelve years", after all, and thinks that his knowledge during the twelve years is enough evidence for him.

     That kind of trust can be a big problem for some people, but really depending on the seriousness of it. Like a manager has a couple of friends within his group of employees that he looks over. My previous boss had that problem. He thought that his friends were all smarter, better employees, and couldn't do anything harmful despite that they did the same things as others. They could have stolen the money as much as anyone else.

     In the world I see way too many other people treating their friends like they are so perfectly innocent, and disregarding or ignoreing the evidence that would proove otherwise. Simply because they think knowing them for a while is all the proof they need. Thinking that being someone's friend completly explains what this so called friend would do to other people, and trying to ignore any proof like it was forcefull garbage? And, before even hearing or seeing it even.

     I can use another example of how bad that can be. Take a couple of close friends. They have known each other for 7 years now, and she finally begins to hear stories and warnings from other people that this friend might be a thief that has been robbing them. Given that this close friend has been to her house all along during these 7 or so years, she 'knows' they wouldn't rob anyone. Thus, she ignores the accusations, and even tells this close friend about them. Later on, after they have both done their shareing about how rediculess they are, she finds herself robbed. Her most valuable possessions are gone, and she feels crushed.

     Her close friend of 7 years is no where to be seen, and likely ran off to another state. She's appauled after finding it was this close friend who did it, and has her possessions in her own hands. She rightfully feels backstabbed, betrayed, and toyed with. She then realises that having dismissed and ignored the evidence in the past was not the wisest choice on her part, but then she didn't know her 'close friend's' intentions were fake.

     I'm not being serious at anyone here. I'm just saying.. Why not look at all the proof and hear both sides of the story before taking any sides? When accusations happen, alot of people sure like to jump up and say "I know they wouldn't do that because I know them". 'sigh' I hope I can remember to not take sides in the future because it will come across me again someday. One way or another.

yeah this happens to everyone, maybe this is because one feels a big affection for this person and you simply can't believe this friend can do something like that, you'll feel very disappointed, and you just try to avoid the true even if in your interior something tells you it is true, you can't accept that and you get blinded yourself.

It's a Dangerous mistake trust on someone blindly and rejecting all the proofs that shown his culpability, its good trust in someone but is also necessary see everything objectively and not subjectively

I understand what you're saying, but sometimes people are out to discredit and destroy others with lies. And when it's he said/she said, character witness is important because a past personal history with someone can let you know how much you can believe either party.

It is true that sometimes people who seem good do bad things and people who seem bad are being honest, so yes, definitely, if there are any, facts should be considered objectively - keeping in mind that whomever is presenting them could be twisting them. If there aren't facts available, I will ALWAYS trust the people I have a history with.  The truth always comes out in the end and eventually they will show their true colors, but until then, I believe in loyalty.

For instance, I've seen this happen several times where someone I knew was falsely accused by people on some weird vendetta. (I say weird because I don't get this kind of hateful mentality)  

In one instance, on another board, some women tried to bring down my friend by making things up about her and mouthing off on a blog. Really foul, hateful stuff too.  There was no basis of truth in it at all, they were just being mean because they felt slighted that she wanted them to ask permission for using her artwork. Since I knew my friend was just in her request and was a sweetest humble person who is protective of her work, AND because I had witnessed these people being nasty before, I knew right away what was going on.

However, a lot of people who didn't know her believed the things being said... There was no proof on either side, just who are you going to believe?

Also, in some instances, people don't really care what's true or not or who is a friend or not, they will just side with the bully because they either want to look cool, or don't want to end up as the next target! Which is what happened when I stood up for my friend. They started in on me...

I should also say that I have had to walk away from people who were friends because the truth did come out in the end and they turned out to be dishonest or treating others in ways I thought were wrong.  But I didn't just jump out of the friendship at the first sign of trouble - in one instance I talked it out with them, trying to resolve it and encourage this person to do the right thing. When he could not, I told him why I wasn't able to be his friend. I still really care about him, and I miss him a lot - but I didn't see how I could be a good friend if I wasn't honest with him and didn't stand by the values he admitted to me that we both shared... (it's too complicated to get into here)

In the other instance I gave the woman every chance to come clean or to turn around and start telling the truth. When she could not, (I believe it was pathological) I simply stopped initiating in the friendship.