When Your Eyes Deceive You (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
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What stories illustrate how our eyes can deceive us?
Today, I'm going to tell you two stories that highlight how the world around us, and even our own eyes, can play tricks on us. Sometimes what people see is not what's really going on at all. But once people have convinced themselves of something, it can be very hard for them to change their minds. And as you'll see today, sometimes that can lead people into deadly situations.
But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do.
So if that's of interest to you, please offer to, for free, beautifully detail the Follow Buttons car. But instead of doing that, once you have their car, just bring it to a huge cliff, put the car in neutral, and push it off. Okay, let's get into our first story, which is called Her Smile.
Around 1.30 p.m. on the afternoon of May 18th, 2007, a 57-year-old woman named Yvonne de Hoord arrived at a park in Rotterdam, which is a city in the Netherlands. She was there to meet up with her friend, and she had to cut through the park to get to his house. Yvonne went to her friend's house almost every day. And usually when she walked through the park during the week, there weren't that many people around. But on this day, it was really crowded because it was the Friday of a long weekend and there was just a lot of families and visitors that were enjoying the spring weather. Which meant the playground, the pathways, and the park's little cafe were all packed. But Yvonne didn't pay that much attention to the crowds because she was busy thinking about her friend.
They'd known each other for years, and they had what she considered to be a very special connection that Yvonne didn't think she had with anybody else. Now, Yvonne knew that a lot of people might say her and her friend's relationship was sort of more strange than special. In fact, some people in her life actually openly disapproved of it. But for Yvonne, it seemed like the main reason for that was, you know, Yvonne was generally pretty friendly and social and sort of an outgoing, normal person. But her friend was extremely reclusive and never left his house. And so it just seemed like an odd pairing. Her friend was originally from Germany, but even though he'd lived in the Netherlands now for years, he'd never learned the language.
So he really couldn't communicate with anybody, including Yvonne, at least not in her native tongue. But for Yvonne, if anything, the fact that people didn't necessarily think this was a good idea for them to be friends just made her feel more protective of her friend. And also, she was especially sympathetic to the fact that her friend had actually been abandoned by his mother as a child. And so in a way, she sort of felt like she was stepping in as sort of a maternal figure in her friend's life. And so Yvonne, she rounded a corner on the park's path, and up ahead, there was her friend's house. And she could actually see her friend through one of the windows. And he did not look particularly happy, he looked sort of dejected.
And so as she approached, you know, she made a big scene to be very smiley and happy, and she's waving to her friend. And sure enough, her friend at some point turned and looked out the window and saw Yvonne approaching, and he broke into a big smile and he waved back. You know, it's like even though they didn't speak the same language, there clearly was a connection there. And Yvonne was just filled with happiness, you know, so glad that she was here to see him. And so Yvonne, she made her way over to her friend. And that day really was spent the same way they spent all their other days together, which, again, they don't speak the same language. So it was just sort of a lot of... you know, body language and gestures and sort of just sitting together and just sort of enjoying each other's company.
There wasn't really any direct communication happening, but this was a unique relationship. And for Yvonne, whatever it was, was enough for her.
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