20071227

Sociopath test

There's an old riddle that goes something like this: A man goes to a friend's funeral, and meets an amazing beautiful woman and they really hit it off. He keeps thinking about this girl and regrets not having gotten her number or asking her out on a date. So he kills his friend's sister. Why would he do that?

The idea is that only a sociopath would know the answer to this riddle: if he kills his friend's sister, there will likely be the same guests as there was at the first funeral, and so the girl is likely to be there.

The problem I have with this so-called "test" is that if you come up with that as the answer, you're not a sociopath, you're an asshole. Not even a sociopath would consider this the most obvious answer. People suffering from sociopathy see no moral qualm with killing people, but that doesn't mean they'll consider it the answer to all of their problems. That's like saying anyone who is pro-choice thinks the solution to any problem is to kill babies. (Remarkably, there are some who actually think that's what pro-choice means.)

How about calling the friend's sister and saying "hey, there was a really interesting girl I met at Steve's funeral. I was wondering if you could help me get a hold of her"? Is killing her really a more practical option? I mean, even if you have absolutely no problem with killing people, even if you've done it before, it would be just plain stupid to kill the person who is most likely to be able to hook you up.

So I submit that if you can answer the above riddle, it proves that you aren't a sociopath: rather, you're a full-on psychotic killer who gets a great deal of enjoyment out of killing people, so much so that you will go out of your way to find any excuse to kill someone. A sociopath would never consider the idea of killing someone just to get a date, not because of their lack of social understanding, but because it's a stupid fucking idea.

1 comment:

DeathStar Detroit said...

I defy all of the above logic.

I had heard that riddle before.

Then again, the first time I heard it, I got it "correct."