Projection

Here's a radical idea -when someone accuses someone else of doing something bad without any evidence, where does he/she get the idea?  Maybe from knowing what he/she would do in that circumstance?  Projection?

For the most part, I've not had to deal with much of this kind of stuff in recent years.  However, when I have had to deal with it, I've always been astounded at being accused of doing something that never even crossed my mind.  So I think about this problem from time to time, trying to understand what could have happened.  I've been taught to look within myself for the answer - what did I do that would give the person the idea that I would do such a thing?  Also, what goes on within me when I think someone else is up to no good and I have no evidence?  I really have no way to guess except to try to think what I might do in that situation.  Actually, I've sort of given up on guessing what other people are doing and what their motives are.  It's actually completely impossible.  But since that would be my only method of guessing if I were guessing, maybe that's what everyone does. 

Maybe when I've been accused of doing something that I can't even imagine doing, my accuser is just guessing by imagining what he/she would do.  Hmmmm.  Projection is a scary thing.  Looking back - in my last job I was accused of lying more than once by one particular person, and that person really saw no problem with lying herself.  Hmmmm.  Maybe I can quit trying to figure out what I did and just chalk it up to projection.