Shy With Strangers
I don’t remember this, but it’s a story my father told me. I was an extremely social kid up until age five or six. I loved people, and no one was a stranger.
My favorite thing to do was go to the mall to say “hi” to literally everyone. But when I was around four years old, my family lived next door to a retired couple.
Their 30-something-year-old son came to live with them, and they wanted to introduce him to us. I was in the driveway with my parents when they took the opportunity to come to do the introduction.
According to my dad, I yelped at the sight of their son and hid behind my dad. Since this was so unusual, he let me hide and just said I was shy with strangers. They didn’t come back over, and my parents stopped talking to them.
A few months later, officers brought the neighbor’s son into custody for possessing terabytes of “graphic content” featuring children. It turned out he had just gotten out of prison after being convicted of child molestation.
There’s no telling what could have happened had my parents continued their friendship with our neighbors.