Blind Date

[Image sourced from Wikipedia]

So, by chance I was watching a TV series today on Foxtel called "Dating in the Dark", which is essentially exactly as the name sounds - a reality show with contestants who have a series of dates in complete darkness supposedly to reveal their personalities, and then once they fancy a partner, they get to see each other in the light and the audience gets to see the superficiality that follows.

I wasn't so sure of the assessments made by 'psychologists' who gave percentage ratings on "compatibility" and "DNA matches". I don't think such things really exist or can be brought down to mathematics. This was probably added for entertainment value.

When it came down to it, what made or broke these couples up really did end up being superficial, no matter how much the contestants denied that fact or justified it with the "absence of physical chemistry" or the "not my type" argument.

Then I got thinking about clothes, and other ways almost everyone these days manipulates their bodies in some way. I see myself as a fairly non-judgemental person, and yet even I was thinking "hey, you have a bit of a bald patch, so maybe the long ringlets of hair isn't the greatest style for you". The things about one of the girls that bothered my boyfriend was her fake looking eyelashes and the length of her fake nails. I mean, these are things that can so easily be changed or manipulated - nails, hairstyles, body shapes, clothes, jewellery, body hair, tattoos, makeup...  essentially all things which can be grouped into the genre of "fashion".

When one person on the show essentially was very attracted to another person and all that was broken over something as small as long hair and glasses, you have to wonder what have our standards of appreciating a fellow human being become?

Obviously unless you're on a reality TV show, sight is our first and therefore default way of sizing up another person. But if we're really letting small things that can easily be changed stand in the way of the possibility of happiness, love, etc etc... it makes you wonder what you're missing.

Maybe it just comes down to exactly how much that girl was attached to her fake nails and eyelashes.

So is this kind of fashion helping us see people, or blinding us?