I consider myself a lucky man. I spent more than forty years next to a woman who lived everything others only talk about. Edó never announced how honest she was, how sincere, how kind. She simply was all that. And when you spend that many years beside someone who naturally carries the basic human values, you very quickly learn to recognize when someone else only says them. That’s how I know how dangerous it is when a person keeps repeating “evidences.” Because the moment something has to be stated out loud, it stops being evident.

 

People who speak in evidences manipulate by verbalizing things that should work silently on their own. “I’m always honest.” “I handle everything fairly.” “I never gossip.” “I only want the best.” The more often they repeat these lines, the more certain it is that something is off. Saying an evidence is always a form of defense. Those who defend themselves are afraid. Those who are afraid are hiding something. And those who hide something are rarely clean. Very often, they are also the ones who intrigue.

 

Intrigue is not loud. It’s slow, soft, slippery. It begins with a small comment. A tiny criticism disguised as concern. A sentence that starts with “I just want the best,” but cuts like a blade. The intriguing person survives by pushing others down while pulling you slightly up. That’s how they build alliances. If you criticize the same person, suddenly you “belong together.” If you gossip together, you are “on the same side.” This is the pact of intrigue: a shared enemy in exchange for false loyalty. But that loyalty is fake. Because in the next conversation, they will dissect you just as effortlessly, with the same smile. They never attach to people - only to situations, roles, opportunities.

 

What they don’t understand is that their constant stream of criticism comes from their own insecurity. People who are grounded don’t care about someone else’s body, clothing, habits, shopping choices or gestures. People who are well inside leave others alone. The unstable ones detect flaws in every movement and try to build alliances out of every flaw. They imagine that laughing at someone together brings people closer. But it doesn’t bring you closer - it drags you into the swamp.

 

The intriguing person and the evidence-person are often the same. One sentence lifts themselves up. The next knocks someone else down. Both sentences come from the same place: they need to prove something. And whoever needs to prove something is not sure of themselves. Whoever is not sure plays roles. And role-players are dangerous. They have no stable ground beneath them - only fear, envy and a lack of confidence.

 

And evidences always precede something. A conflict, a decision, a shift. People who speak in evidences prepare their escape routes in advance. If anything happens, they want ready-made lines, like an alibi: “I always stand for the truth.” “I would never hurt anyone.” “I only tried to help.” These sentences work on those who don’t pay attention. Those who do pay attention see clearly: truly honest people don’t explain. Truly kind ones don’t advertise. Truly straight ones stay straight - even in silence.

 

The world is full of intrigue. Full of insecure people who try to hide what’s broken inside them with loud statements. And the world is full of quiet, decent people too - people whose every small gesture carries truth.

 

Edó taught me that real value is quiet. She never said what kind of person she was. She just lived it. And that was enough. If you’ve ever lived beside such a person, you will always recognize the others - the loud ones, the uncertain ones, the intriguing ones, the evidence-speakers. You won’t confuse them with those who are truly clean. Those who don’t talk the values - they embody them.

 

Intrigue and the spoken evidence are two sides of the same insecurity. Once you learn to see this, you’ll make fewer mistakes about people. You'll let fewer of the wrong ones close. And you’ll see far more clearly who is worth connecting to - and who is not.