Felt the Click?

Caution: Construction Ahead

Man and woman meet. There’s attraction. They develop a relationship.

What does “there’s attraction” mean?

Oh, it’s something about the other, their energy…

Often, it’s something specific. Smile. Humor. Wit. Kindness. Something of their physicality. How they wear their body.

Let’s back away from the man-woman couple and look at an individual.

What or who are you? What makes you – to yourself and to others - you? What makes someone else – to themselves and to you - them?

So many things, actually.

Physicality – height, weight, build, facial features, body type, body parts, body features.

How one uses their physicality - athletic, clumsy, agile, delicate, smooth, flirtatious, cocky.

Personality – quiet, loud, articulate, intelligent, brusque, voice, tonality, vocabulary, humor…

So, when you like someone, how much of them do you really know, grounding your like of them?

How much of them did you sense and like - of actually them - and how much did you then project onto the rest of them - what you wish would be?

I doubt you’d say, “Oooh, I like his broad shoulders.” More likely, you liked his broad shoulders and smile, and then perhaps without realizing also decided he’s a kind, fatherly, solid, family man with a dark edge when necessary.

Why does it matter, you wonder? Whatever we like, we take it from there. Right? As the relationship develops, we become more aware of what is vs. what we project onto the person and we figure out if the learned other is still loved. Right?

Maybe not.

Once I lock onto something I like of you and fill in the rest of your paint-by- numbers-being with colors I want, it’s not going to be easy for me to see your true colors. Confirmation bias – a psychological concept - is a tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms my pre-existing beliefs or positions, while ignoring or discounting evidence that contradicts them.

I might increasingly like – even fall in love with – not the real you, but the version that I built from the bits I saw and liked and then reinforced, by confirmation bias.

This might be true even in our relationship with our selves. How I see myself – physically, psychologically, socially – might be constructed upon one or two things, positive or negative, through personal observation or introspection, or as heard from someone I accept as authority. Those bits might serve as scaffolding, around and upon which, through cognitive bias, I construct my entire sense of self.

My answer to “Who am I?” might be very different from who I really am - or at least could be.

And now, flipping back to relationship with another: Imagine if both people have this almost fictional sense of self, while they also construct their version of the other. There are then effectively six players in the dynamic: each person’s true self, each person’s perception of themselves, and each person’s perception of the other.

What a complicated orgy. How do you think that will play out in the long term if the objective is to have satisfying compatibility and intimacy?

Probably as things usually work out.

If only we could recognize the difference between observation and projection, especially at the outset of an engagement, and, in the personal sphere, one’s formulative years, we’d stand a better chance at wholesome, enriching living.

Right.

Given technology’s direction - AI, fake news, enhanced or outright fictional imagery, ChatGPT-created profiles – we’ll probably settle faster on the imaginary.

So, what’s your IG handle, anyway?