I like to think that I don’t make snap judgments of people, but I do. Sometimes I see a face, or a haircut, or a mannerism, and I start to create a profile of the person’s life. Yesterday I overheard a conversation between a server and a very nerdy customer. Everything about his voice, dialogue, clothing, and even posture told me he was a geek.
That sounds mean. But here’s the thing, the profile I built for him was this:
He has a very small group of friends, but they are great friends that would go out of their way to help him. He loves board games, and prefers that they are cooperative rather than competitive. He isn’t involved in any organized sports but isn’t afraid to participate in sports with friends and comparatively he is as good as them and that’s good enough. He will go out of his way to interact with someone serving him and finds joy in those interactions. His sense of humour is as geeky as he is, and he isn’t afraid to laugh at his own jokes. He’s happy.
There are a lot of people who find it hard to be happy, I don’t think this guy has a problem being happy.
My judgement could be totally wrong. This guy might have been offended if he knew what I thought. He might lack confidence, or be quite unhappy. But I like my profiling.
On the other end of the spectrum, when I see someone grumpy or unhappy, I build back stories that give them reasons for this. I see them more as victims of circumstance rather than inherently angry or mean.
But in the end these are all fictions I create. I see faces and they tell me stories… not real stories but stories I create for them. Stereotypes are oversimplified, I tend to complicate them, individualize them, and create lives based on faces, looks, and mannerisms. I wonder what people see, when they see me?
