DARK SECRETS: Weird things portrayed being normal | Vintage Vibes

To find out how this conversation started, we reached out to Reddit user AlexanderKeef, who posed the question, "What’s the weirdest thing someone casually told you as if it were totally normal?" The OP explained that he's a case worker and recently had a conversation with a client that inspired him to start this thread.

After being asked how he was doing, the client told AlexanderKeef that he was "planning on putting someone in the hospital" right after their meeting. "I’m gonna go murder this fool. He won’t leave me alone," the client told the OP.

"Obviously, I was taken aback, as anyone would be!" AlexanderKeef shared. "I would say this is the catalyst for the post. People don’t do things for no reason however, and it’s clear this client felt like they were in a burning building on the 10th floor and had 2 choices of escape: jump out the window or run into the fire. The client is in a safe place now, for the record."

AlexanderKeef also shared that, being a case manager, people say strange things to him all the time. But he says it's important to always treat them with empathy, regardless of what they say.

"Judgments only serve as fuel for motivated reasoning and belief perseverance," he explained. "For instance, if I had challenged the client and told them how terrible their motives were, the client would likely rationalize me as just another cog in the system trying to make their life more miserable– to take control away from [them]– because, as [they] may reason, I didn’t actually care about why they felt the way they did. I’d just be following policy like a machine, and machines aren’t human and therefore possess no humanity."

"Why would [they] work or trust with someone without humanity? For [them], their statement wasn’t weird," the OP added. "For [them], doing anything else was weird, because they’ve tried, and probably had bad experiences. So [they] developed learned helplessness and associated those other options we may consider to be reasonable as maladaptive instead. In this sense, the 'weird' things the clients tell me aren’t really weird (meaning objective aberrations of/in thought), but rather what they’ve reasoned to be the most efficient way to get their needs met."

The OP went on to note that he has no shortage of examples of bizarre things people have told him. "I know there’s a congeries of ridiculous things I’ve said or done sequestered somewhere in my brain, but what’s interesting, and connects with what I’ve mentioned prior, is that what might be considered weird requires reflection," he told Bored Panda.

"In this way, 'weird' things are cognitive blind spots. We don’t think (unless it’s for comedic effect) what I’m about to say is weird; I’m going to say it. Instead, it works the opposite, we say something we don’t consider 'weird.' We (or more likely, others) reflect on what we’ve said, and then deem it weird," he explained.

AlexanderKeef also shared a personal experience from when he was about 15 years old and visited his brother and his brother's fiancé in California. "I was a very edgy teen, probably the coolest and deepest kid in the Midwest," he noted. "His fiancé had said something to the affect of, 'I’m glad I was able to make it and meet you!' I wanted to be funny and quick-witted (of which I am neither), so I blurted out, 'I’m glad. Now I can close my legs.'"

"To this day, I have no clue what I meant by that, and it haunts me nightly," the OP admitted. "I felt immediately foolish; anxiety expanded in my chest like a balloon, and I wanted to bury my head in the hardwood. This was weird, sure, but I was a kid, and I was suffering from social anxiety stemming from parental abuse. So it makes sense my social acumen was severely lacking (it still is in many ways). Through this perspective, what I said wasn’t really weird, but a dollop of my struggling development."

As far as what the OP thought of the replies to his post, he shared that he was shocked by many of them. "I did enjoy reading them though," he noted. "They were very eye-opening, and reinforced what I mentioned above."

"One response that stood out was a classmate of the poster in training to be an FBI agent," AlexanderKeef said. "During class, they were shooting the shit with other trainees and the instructor who was an agent. He admitted to committing a felony (I think it was a robbery) like he was retelling a story about a time he burned a batch of hot dogs during a BBQ picnic. He was subsequently arrested. He obviously didn’t think it was weird, or he wouldn’t have brought it up. It was lingering in his cognitive blind spot, and for whatever reason (probably the environment he grew up in), this was a normal part of life, and nobody had exposed the event as inappropriate until it was too late."

The OP also wanted to discuss the psychological concept of Fundamental Attribution Error. "An FAE is when someone is more likely to assume and judge one’s disposition versus their environment in any given event," he explained. "We all do this. Think of when you’re driving, and someone cuts you off. We feel anger first, and then reason why being angry in that moment is appropriate. We might see this as a personal attack, and reason why this person is a menagerie of expletives. But how do we know this person isn’t driving a loved one to the hospital to save their life?"

"Given this environmental context, we might be less inclined to assume their disposition in the pejorative, and more likely to express understanding for reckless actions," AlexanderKeef continued. "It’s easy to assume their stupidity because it inconveniences us, even though it’s very likely we are being hypocritical. Suddenly, their actions don’t seem weird, but reasonable, even if dangerous."

"The sirens of an ambulance exist to give context to other drivers that the ambulance may be driving 'recklessly,' and it will be less dangerous if we as drivers move out of the way. The siren makes the reckless driving not weird," he explained. "As a note, people tend to commit FAEs against themselves when they reflect on the past (like the cringe accompanying my statement to my sister-in-law) because they see their past selves as a different person. But negative thinking about our past selves still affects how we feel about ourselves in the present, regardless of any temporal variable."

"I’d also like to say that I love artists who excel in exposing what’s 'weird' as completely normal," AlexanderKeef told Bored Panda. "For instance, SZA released a song not too long ago about killing her ex and his new girlfriend, emphasizing she’d do this of her own volition and didn’t need any encouragement from items such as drugs or alcohol to do so, making salient her metacognition in the event, or awareness that some may see her reasoning as irrational. But she still believes in her motivated reasoning despite reflection from others. She ends the song with 'I’d rather be in hell than be alone.' This sounds a lot like jumping out of the building versus running into the fire."