Should you report what you've witnessed to the police?

You and your girlfriend witness a fight one evening on the way home from the movies and recognize one of the fighters as your best friend’s son. You are horrified and surprised to see what is going on. The attacker is kicking and hitting the victim who is trying to squirm his way to safety holding his arms over his head to shield it. You know immediately that you have a dilemma. The mother of the boy is your best friend. You know the boy personally as he has done little errands for you and has always been willing to help with little chores. How did she not know this side of him and what is she going to do? Is she going to report it? Her girlfriend has already run off to get to the house and to dial 911. You wonder whether you should keep quiet about witnessing the fight and say nothing at all, or do the right thing and go to the police and say who he is and where he lives.


Covering up

Answering this question is easier said than done. You did not ask for the situation. You have come upon the scene unexpectedly and seen something you should not have seen and whichever way you turn it will not be an easy decision to make. Still, bad as it may seem, the truth is always best. You cannot withhold important information from the police. Your friend’s son may quite possibly be a nasty bit of work and beat up on people if he is not stopped. His behavior should be investigated in that case.


Loyalties and conscience

If this is his first run-in with the law it will be good for him to have a wake-up call and see what it is like to be overnight in a prison. To keep quiet about the situation and not name the perpetrator, will also send the wrong message and mother and son won’t benefit anyway from the lie. There is also the price one has to pay for harboring a fugitive or aiding and abetting a person who should pay the price for his crimes and misdemeanors. It could be your child who was attacked. What kind of justice would you want? You would want the punishment to fit the crime. Hard as it may be for the other family, you have to tell the truth. Your friend may never speak to you again for reporting the details of the crime to the police, but you would have done a service to the community – that you don’t tolerate bullies and will not be drawn into a lie. If your friend does not understand your predicament it may be time to examine whether the friendship is worth having.

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What makes us fall in love

And what is love? How do we fall in love? What makes us fall in love? These are only some of the questions that have been asked about love. Sages and poets and experts have all tried to answer the question; yet one is not satisfied with the answer or the right answer has not yet been revealed. Is it catching a whiff of perfume? Is it a glimpse of a woman with haunting eyes in a black billowing raincoat standing in the wind? Is it a primitive need to protect?



The business of love

Some say it’s a cocktail of chemicals to the brain, others say it’s a template buried deep in the subconscious for the ideal partner and when we come close to it we respond. I could go with both these answers as dopamine is a euphoric hit to the brain, and the ideal template makes a lot of sense; remnants of the past, that kind of thing. Yet, it does not reveal all that love is or what makes us love and want love. Love is probably one of man’s most important needs. For example, a mother can still the cries of a baby just by putting her arms around her. As an adult a woman goes out into the world looking for something or someone. She cannot articulate what it is, but it’s a need that stills the senses and makes her feel safe.



The Bachelor Pad

Last night on the Bachelor Pad I watched a beautiful couple vying with other couples – all single – to compete for a prize of a quarter million rand. The first time we see this couple, they have just paired up in the game. The next time we see them a few days later they have spent the night together and were getting up. The woman asked the man straight out if he loved her. He did not answer. She then said she loved him. He still did not respond. As I watched I felt a little sad that these women put their desperation on display. They had all just met recently. They believed they would find their man by coming on the show. There were some recycled contestants – those who had either been the prize or those who were there for their second or third time. They all looked like little Kardashians with blond hair hoping to make it big and find the right man. They were in a fairy tale setting but wanted real-world commitment answers.



Marriage not a fairy tale

As I watched the couples I was nevertheless fascinated. Beautiful and stunning as this girl who had asked the big no question was, she was insecure. She needed to be validated. She needed to lean on the arm of a man and be seen. She needed to show that she had succeeded in finding a man. Am I surprised? No. We are all looking for that one particular person with the ready made template. In cavemen days men hunted, and women gathered firewood and berries. We have ingrained inside all of us the notion of family; a momma bear, a poppa bear, and the little cubs. We feel out of sorts if we do not have that experience. The prize was a quarter million rand. The price was pain and humiliation.



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Mom's boyfriend asked me out

The most degrading and under-handed thing that a man can do to a family is to date the divorced mother in order to get close to the woman’s daughter. The man has made overtures to the girl on several occasions and is behaving inappropriately in her company, always teasing her when mom is not looking and asking her not to tell her mother that he had asked her to go with him to see a movie. Should the daughter tell her mother what is happening? Will her mom believe her? Will she immediately ask him to leave? Or will her mom think she is the cause and had led him on? There are women who have sided with the boyfriend and not taken the word of their own children.


Truth is best

There are several reasons why the daughter should immediately tell her mother what has happened; that her boyfriend has made several advances towards her and even asked her out. The best way to approach the matter and move forward includes the following;

• The daughter should not keep this secret as it will lead to more deception from which it might be more difficult to extricate herself later on. The lie will become larger, some strange things might happen; the girl might even turn against her own mother.

• He is behaving in a disgusting manner coming into their home under false pretences and trying to draw her, the daughter, into an affair.

• He is hurting the mother who is lonely and probably will feel devastated when she learns of the man’s real motives.

• The man should immediately be exposed. The woman should not try to work things out; he should leave the premises immediately.

• He is a sexual predator and not to be trusted. He has no remorse and does not care who he hurts.

• Let the man go. You don’t know this man and don’t know if he might hurt someone else because he hasn’t yet been caught.

• A man who can come into the home of someone for the daughter and not the mother is a skunk and should be reported. He has not committed a criminal act yet; don’t wait for it to happen. Do something. You don’t want to read in the paper one day that he has hurt someone else.

• When you tell him what he has done is sick and disgusting, tell him at the same time that you will tell the police if he comes near you or your mother again. Tell him further that you have written about it and the letter is in a place where it can’t be found.

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