The first 2 seconds

[kimberkit]

It 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?

Comments

[underwatercolor.livejournal.com]

1) Many people I know go through periods where they have time for dating new people and times of all the busy ever. There is, at least, an argument for not asking except when one has the time to commit. Of course, one could also say, "I have no time right now, but would you be interested in dating [next year]?" It does sound a bit funny, though. :)

2) I certainly buy that people make many immediate decisions. Furthermore, I like to trust people until I have reason not to, rather than the reverse. However, I have heard several people say that they need to build up friendship/trust/whatnot before they consider dating. I think one usually learns more by just trying it. :) But here, people often have a lot of constructs that make this difficult. :)

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the argument in point #2 is what Neil was saying -- that he thought that a lot of people vote for "maybe, we'll wait and see..." before committing to date, although I think this is a little odd, because dating *is* about getting to know someone.

[underwatercolor.livejournal.com]

Mmm. I think we agree, so the rest of this is a tangent.

I think the depth of relationshipal catch-22 is very poorly understood, and this is but one example. If one insists that trust must be earned and does not allow untrusted people to get close, it's a hedgehog's dilemma. People act as if they can observe others without committing to a behavior toward them, but this usually isn't possible. :)

"And everything stands so still when you dance... everything spins so fast
And the night's in a paper cup... when you want it to last." (Heather Nova)

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we agree :) And I think we also agree that *generally*, granting trust usually reaps rewards more than it yields pain. (Though I've certainly gotten burned before on this...)

Still. There certainly are levels to trust -- like, "I trust this person to watch my back" is something that should, in fact, (at least in theory) be an earned trust. There are definitions of loyalty and trying to figure out where their priorities are and such that you have to get information for before that trust is really reasonable to give.

[osirusbrisbane.livejournal.com]

It's certainly true that we make a lot of snap judgments upon meeting people (A depressing and fascinating book about this is "Blink", if you haven't read it), but these certainly can change. Empirically, at least, I can say that in my own (limited) experience, I've had my first gleans on dateability of various people change in both directions after gathering further information and getting to know them better.

I'm generally not a snap judgment sort of person, mainly because I tend to change my mind a lot -- as anyone who plays board games with me can attest. So I definitely am all for the gathering more information, pretty much always.

[kimberkit.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I guess if you thought that someone was trustworthy, and then they hit you, your assessment certainly should change -- however, I'd argue that the initial, objective data that your subconscious gathers at amazing speeds is probably not-as-likely to change as your interpretation of that data.

But the interpretation is definitely really important, so you give me hope. I heart you, Seth!

[malinalda.livejournal.com]

Ditto on all counts. There are definitely people I've met and thought, "Wow, he's really boring" or "I would never be friends with this person," and found out as I got to know them better that they were actually really fun. Ditto for the opposite - there are people I've thought were utterly charming on first meeting who, once I spent a little more time around them, turned out to be jerks. And given my group of friends, I don't even really want to count how many people there are for whom my initial impression was, "(S)he's...kinda weird," only later to go back and add, "...but in an awesome sort of way."

Also, two years ago, I told Lee quite definitively that nothing was ever going to happen between us - and very sincerely believed it. Luckily for me, he thought he might be able to change my mind. :-p

[entropicangel.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I hope I can muster up more quantum sort of contributions in the future!

An extra corollary is that, well, given the separateness of conscious and subconscious minds, while our subconscious snap judgments of people may heavily guide our actions, we aren't necessarily (in fact, most often are not) aware of what those judgments are ... eepness, must muse on this more in my head, and also snuggle with you now.

[idealforcolors.livejournal.com]

I think I'm with you on both counts, Neil - when I'm afraid of someone else rejecting me, the path forward is pretty obvious (just ask and then it's out of my hands!), but when I suspect my "maybe" judgment could be a "maybe no" (which happens more often than the other way around) I'm very reluctant to do anything, will certainly not ask myself, and may turn down a date if asked. And it's all too easy to second-guess our subconscious snap judgments.