It's always weird when we learn something about a person that doesn't jive with the assumptions we had about them. Like finding out a person you respect voted for a politician you can't stand. I remember when I was a kid, I just sort of automatically assumed that anybody I liked as a person held the same X beliefs I did. Because, you know, people who hold Y beliefs are idiots, and I wouldn't like an idiot. Lol.

I've done this in therapy, too. Assumed T held certain X beliefs, because people who hold Y beliefs are idiots, and an idiot couldn't help me. Lol. How uncomfortable it was to pick up on things that made me doubt T thought X! Because what does that mean? That idiots can help me? That people who believe Y aren't idiots, after all? That it's a miracle this person's idiocy hasn't contaminated me yet - or perhaps that it already has, which is why I thought they were helpful in the first place?! Noooooo!

I think situations like this present a good opportunity to examine the assumptions we have about the world. Or perhaps the essential unknowability of other people.