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The first 2 seconds
Jan. 3rd, 2010 02:39 amIt is fairly widely known that we make many, many assessments of the people we meet within the first 2 seconds of meeting them. Applying this concept to romantic assessment in particular, it is clear that all of us must make some judgment as to whether someone is datable within 2 seconds of meeting them. There are only three possibilities -- "yes," "maybe," and "no."
The thing that is somewhat puzzlesome for me is that people often delay and avoid the possibility of dating because of complications in their own heads, even if they suspect that they are compatible/attracted to someone. Logically speaking, this is silly -- while rejection does sting, the reality of the fact is that if the answer from the person you're interested in was "no" to begin with, then it was always going to be "no." You were always going to be rejected; it's wired in from the first second you meet someone.
Therefore, my initial conclusion was that most of us should be asking each other out much more often than we do, in order to gain certainty, because the worst that could happen is already inevitable.
Neil pointed out that the above is a fairly deterministic outlook, and, being Neil, offered a more quantum sort of rebuttal. He argued that often, when we consider people to be worthwhile as friends, we sort of automatically stick them in the "maybe" category -- that "maybe" is not just "maybe yes" but it's also "maybe not." (He also claimed, as a corollary, that "maybe" happens more often than a true "yes.") He said that it was the hope of avoiding "maybe not" that made us act in a much more "wait and see" fashion than logic might allow (well, that, plus the pain of rejection, which does, I admit, suck pretty hard.)
"Maybe not" is also hard to reverse. If Person Y were to ask whether Person Z wanted to date them, and Person Z was having a terrible day or felt that there wasn't quite enough worldview-match in common, that the impact of Person Z telling Person Y, "You are great, but I'm not sure this would work right now" would make it really hard for Person Z to change their minds and say, "Well, I was having a terrible day before and maybe we could give it a try."
This all has merit -- and certainly the reasons for which we avoid definite commitment to either "no" or "yes" are subject to change with circumstance. But -- and this is very Myers-Briggs "N" of me -- I think we are likely to actually already know whether the "maybe" falls closer to yes or no without much true uncertainty or real possibility of changing our minds. (We might not necessarily trust our gut, and frustratingly enough, we might not communicate that in any useful direction, but we do know.) For most people, too, I think we are more likely to err towards agreeing to date if there is any true question -- most people seem pretty conservative in wanting to gather more information to prove or disprove preliminary impressions, regardless of the fact that our subconscious assessments are probably pretty accurate and hard to shake anyway. (Hand-wavyness here).
Thoughts?
The thing that is somewhat puzzlesome for me is that people often delay and avoid the possibility of dating because of complications in their own heads, even if they suspect that they are compatible/attracted to someone. Logically speaking, this is silly -- while rejection does sting, the reality of the fact is that if the answer from the person you're interested in was "no" to begin with, then it was always going to be "no." You were always going to be rejected; it's wired in from the first second you meet someone.
Therefore, my initial conclusion was that most of us should be asking each other out much more often than we do, in order to gain certainty, because the worst that could happen is already inevitable.
Neil pointed out that the above is a fairly deterministic outlook, and, being Neil, offered a more quantum sort of rebuttal. He argued that often, when we consider people to be worthwhile as friends, we sort of automatically stick them in the "maybe" category -- that "maybe" is not just "maybe yes" but it's also "maybe not." (He also claimed, as a corollary, that "maybe" happens more often than a true "yes.") He said that it was the hope of avoiding "maybe not" that made us act in a much more "wait and see" fashion than logic might allow (well, that, plus the pain of rejection, which does, I admit, suck pretty hard.)
"Maybe not" is also hard to reverse. If Person Y were to ask whether Person Z wanted to date them, and Person Z was having a terrible day or felt that there wasn't quite enough worldview-match in common, that the impact of Person Z telling Person Y, "You are great, but I'm not sure this would work right now" would make it really hard for Person Z to change their minds and say, "Well, I was having a terrible day before and maybe we could give it a try."
This all has merit -- and certainly the reasons for which we avoid definite commitment to either "no" or "yes" are subject to change with circumstance. But -- and this is very Myers-Briggs "N" of me -- I think we are likely to actually already know whether the "maybe" falls closer to yes or no without much true uncertainty or real possibility of changing our minds. (We might not necessarily trust our gut, and frustratingly enough, we might not communicate that in any useful direction, but we do know.) For most people, too, I think we are more likely to err towards agreeing to date if there is any true question -- most people seem pretty conservative in wanting to gather more information to prove or disprove preliminary impressions, regardless of the fact that our subconscious assessments are probably pretty accurate and hard to shake anyway. (Hand-wavyness here).
Thoughts?
