the world as mindfuck

Tis the conclusion.

The world was never made to make any sense to any of us. It's quite beyond our understanding -- I, for one thing, have a difficult enough of a time trying to understand why I sought out to write a thesis, intentionally. How am I to figure out why people act a certain way, why they do certain things, why certain things happen with no apparent cause, etc.? It's not even that we will never know the answers to these "why" questions, it's that even if someone were to explain "why" we would never understand it.

Why would we not understand? Because we all have different minds. Take, for example, an instant messenger conversation. Between two friends, chances are misunderstandings are unlikely to occur. But then again, on the odd occasion, one writes one thing and the other interprets it in a way entirely contrary to the intended message. Such a misunderstanding happens precisely because we are reading the words on the screen in our own way, via our own minds. In effect, in the process of reading what my friend had typed, I have translated the sentence from her language to my language. The basis of this understanding goes like this: If I were writing that sentence in that context, I would have this type of inflection on that word, and with such-and-such a tone, to mean it in that particular way.

This is, also, precisely why internet dating could be a total disaster. I presume that, regardless of gender, most of us 'normal' people look for a partner who is honest, moral, respectful, intelligent, sexy, good-looking, fun, sociable, educated, perhaps ambitious and goal-driven, or mellow and laid back...the list goes on. Most of us, I think, know the kind of relationship we would want to be in (if you wanted to be in one at all), and I think some people might be amazed that such a desire lies in that person who happens to sit next to you on a bus, or a movie theater, or the person in line ahead of you, waiting to get their morning coffee. Yes, you might not necessarily be attracted to them, but that's a whole new different story.

The point is, when you start talking to someone on instant messenger in an internet dating setting, both parties are looking for, give or take a few, the same type of qualities. And with that already established, as long as the other party uses positive-connotation words every so often, says the 'right' things (let's not get into an epistemological argument about what 'right' means--we all know what 'right' means in our own way), of course they're going to sound attractive. By that point you've read their half of the conversation on your terms, in your language, with your habitual inflections and tones that would be appropriated to certain words and phrases. In fact, you are actually just talking to yourself, your idealized partner. We are probably all somewhat narcissistic in some ways--aren't we told by our friends not to put yourself down?--so it makes sense that we feel attracted someone produced by our own imaginations.

Add to this the self-explanatory phenomenon of the "best-picture-of-myself" and you've successfully landed yourself an indulgence problem than a romance.

This is, however, not to say that none of us should bother trying. By some wind of luck, some people have met online and have had very successful relationships (or, so they say). And instant messengers are great devices that allow us to talk to someone without getting our butts out of bed or using airtime on an overcharged cellphone. I suppose miscommunication is the price we have to pay for not wanting to, or having the courage to, go up to a random person in public and say hi, or smile. Just because we don't--and probably won't--understand the world doesn't mean we can just stop trying to understand it, because sometimes it makes people happy to be able to wonder or superficially explain the world. I don't see a problem with that.