Blind Dates.

With virtually everyone we meet, we follow a certain path. In this blog post, I’m going to consider that path, which too often leads us nowhere.

First, our eyes scan. That takes a fraction of a second, sometimes it happens so fast our eyes don’t even need to move, a single retinal image is all that’s required for the instinctive processes to run. Within the next instant, or perhaps within the same moment, we have already cataloged and made our first judgment.

Interesting / Not Interesting / Perhaps / Definitely / WOW! / Yuck! / etc. etc. etc…

{This is a major reason I believe there will never be “artificial intelligence”. Computers have an option of two possibilities, thinking beings have options unrestricted by numbers.}

Once we’ve made that initial multifaceted categorization, it is very difficult for us to change it. We seldom even consider approaching, further investigating, or paying real attention to anyone who falls beneath a certain perceptive level. Likewise, for those who pass sight’s first momentary muster, we’re unwilling to discard them even when they prove themselves to hold no qualities we value, besides their looks.

Personally speaking, I have always been very strongly attracted to short, dark haired women. I’ve spent many hours wondering why and never been able to come up with any satisfactory reason. My mother is taller than average and has pale hair.  So much for Freud! {Who I have always considered to be a complete fraud. :)} Since I can’t explain this powerful physical preference logically, I think it might be somehow encoded into my psyche. However, there are self-taught exceptions to my encoded preferences. I’m fairly certain if you examine yours closely you’ll find you have similar exceptions. Here is an example. In high school I developed an enormous crush on my English Literature Teacher, who did not fit into my mysterious encoding for “should be short and dark haired”. As a student I had no choice but to spend time listening closely to everything she said.  This gave me a chance to learn what an amazing person she was. Ever since then, if a woman has a resemblance to Miss Earl I find them attractive. They get an instant pass.

Read back and you’ll see a lot of things have been visually processed, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of how our choices are made.  Anyway, all of this visual determination and categorization happens long before we’ve said a single word. Long before.

How sad is that?

How many wonderful relationships never even get a chance to start because one or the other person has already made a start / stop determination before a single word has been shared? Before a single pheromone has been delivered? Before a single lip has curled, either up or down? Before we actually know anything about their character, values, religious beliefs, or individual preferences – which are probably just as limiting as our own?

Love at first sight truly exists.

I know that for an absolute, unquestionable fact because it happened to me with my wife Suzanne. The key concept up until this point, is “sight”. Marketers know this, as evidenced by their use of attractive people in commercial advertising. {I wonder how many physically ugly politicians have ever been democratically elected?  Conversely, I wonder how many pretty people with horribly flawed characters have?}

I’m guessing the first criteria on-line dating sites use to narrow choices to potential dates, is a picture. Before on-line dating, many people met via something called “blind-dates”. I set up and went on a few of those myself. I can tell you the first real question asked was always “What do they look like?” Sure, we try might try and couch ourselves as not so shallow by leading in with something else, but the real make or break question was always about looks.

Humans are visual beings. Think about it logically and you have to agree this is simply undeniable. Now let me ask you something. Where does that leave people who are without the benefit of sight? I imagine that with the first enormous hurdle removed, of an image permitting or preventing further interaction, blind people are far more open to diversity. However I don’t know that, I’m just imagining it.

Have people without the gift of sight been given other gifts? I think so. Perhaps not limiting their friendships based on something as illusory as sight is one such gift?

When next we meet someone, let us all try to be blind. Let us impose an image we love over their visual form, then listen and let them reveal who they truly are inside – we might well be surprised.