Are we losing touch with reality?
Recently I saw a reel/short video of a sketch with people on the bus. To me it was obviously actors and not a real life situation unfolding. There was no talking, just gesturing in a way where you could tell what they were wanting to communicate. The scenario was on a busy looking bus; a heavily pregnant woman in a red, close fitting dress is cradling and rubbing her hand over her stomach as she gestures to a man sitting that she would like to have a seat. The man grins at her and with his legs apart pats them to indicate that she can sit on his lap. A middle aged lady sitting behind him shakes her head with a look of indignation, stands and gestures for the lady to sit in her seat. She then steps around and sits herself with a cheeky smile on the man's lap, to the delight and laughter of his friends.
The comments section was full of comments praising the older woman and criticising the actions of the man as if it was a real event. I scrolled through trying to find the usual comments having a laugh about it or even ones saying "this is a sketch, not real" in response to the angry comments but I couldn't find any. I had to wonder, have we reached a point where screens are such a big part of our life that they are becoming reality for many people?
I heard someone say that we are losing the ability to read facial expression and body language and they put this down to our reduced interactions face to face with people in real life. It's hard to see subtle expressions on screens, after all.
When a lot of places implemented mask mandates people questioned how this might affect the development of young children. This is a time of life where the brain is developing rapidly and making a lot of new connections and some of these babies and children weren't seeing faces outside of their own home for up to a year. I'd be curious to see if there will be any follow up when these children reach adulthood to know if it had any effect on them in the long run.
Attractiveness isn't just 2D
Image courtesy of @nioberojas
Something else I recently saw was a woman talking about how often women complain about getting matched on dating apps with less attractive men (I don't know if this complaint goes both ways). She theorised that this might actually be because there aren't many attractive men, but I have a different theory. While the way someone looks might be one of the factors that attracts us to a potential romantic partner, it is far from the only thing. Have you ever seen a posed photo of someone you've never really thought of as attractive and been surprised to find yourself thinking that they're way more attractive than you thought? Then you see then again in person and can't see the attractiveness you saw in the photo any more? And no, I don't mean that the photo was altered in any way, it was just a good photo and makeover to highlight their best physical assets.
On the other hand I've encountered men who I wouldn't class as particularly good looking at all, but they have no shortage of admirers and leave heartbroken women in their wake. Then when I've interacted with them I've understood why. There's a lot to be said an attractive personality.
There is a combination of factors which attract us to someone. The way they look, their character and compatibility of that character with or own and even their scent. Interestingly the scent aspect seems to be connected to the immune system/microbiome. If their immune system is too similar to our own then we won't find their scent appealing at all, but if it's very different then we are likely to find their scent attractive. When I worked behind the bar in the UK at a rugby and football club the rugby team had two players from New Zealand come to play for them. They weren't particularly attractive looking men and visually I would say that their fit physiques were the only thing that might have made them stand out a bit, but no more so than the other players. There were certainly better looking players on the team, many of whom were also players when it came to women as well. Yet these New Zealanders garnered just as much attention from the local groupies. Initially I didn't understand why, but eventually I got to know them and could see what these girls were falling for, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was. As I think back now, could it be that they would have had very different immune systems to our own having spend years in a completely different environment to us?
We had another rugby player visit from South Africa at another time. He was good looking and drew girls to him only for them to immediately turn away when he tried to turn on the romance. I guess the looks were right and the scent was right, but the personality was off. I heard was that he was the worst kisser they'd ever encountered.
The thing is, you can't base attraction on looks alone and you can't experience the rest without interacting with that person in real life. You might get a bit more information through voice and video interaction, but we can't pick up on other things without actually being with them in person. Besides scent, we can often have an instinctual feeling about someone when we encounter them that might flag them as creepy or dangerous. You might not even know why you get this vibe from them, but the chances are that it's subtle body language that you can't pick up on through video media. If this is the case then the fact that we seem to be seeing over exaggerated body language as normal means we're possibly losing our ability to spot more subtle body language.
Are we trying to normalise loneliness?
The less we interact with others the less we want to interact and the more distrustful we become of others. We are also more likely to become depressed and anxious at the thought of having to deal with other people. My daughter is doing much better with her anxiety since she started working in a cohesive and supportive environment. Not something she really understood until she took that step. It's helped her confidence in dealing with people in other environments as well.
This brings to mind another video on social media where a woman filmed what she did on her weekends as a single person with some money to spare. She goes out into the countryside to camp, then cooks steak and drinks lots of beer. Someone had reposted this with the caption that you don't need to be in a relationship to have fun and the comments were mostly along the lines of, 'we don't need men, we're not lonely and can have fun by ourselves.' I'm not sure how this came to being about whether you're single or not, but the woman certainly didn't look particularly happy in what she was doing, more like she was trying to eat and drink her depression away. She didn't even seem to be enjoying the countryside, but rather escaping from the judgment of others and maybe from worklife for a bit. I feel like she would have enjoyed this experience much more with friends, which is what people normally do when going camping. Even if you don't want to be in a romantic relationship it doesn't mean you have to reject all connection with other people.
Why are people trying to normalise being alone? I realise we can all want time alone on occasion and it's not a bad thing, but to constantly be alone and have no choice about it isn't exactly a good situation for our mental health. Someone suggested that it could be a survival instinct for us to become anxious, defensive and even aggressive towards others when we find ourselves isolated, because it would have been hard to survive alone thousands of years ago. Could this be why we are seeing more of this behaviour online?