Perspective

I think that the way we see people is very complicated.

When we are little, someone is nice to us and we associate their bodytype and facial structure with niceness. Someone is mean and we do they same thing. So, by the time we are in elementary school, we have a fairly large encyclopedia of associations and as time goes by it just increases.

In addition to the visual associations, there are situational associations. We learn from watching our parents, family, friends, and seeing how they respond to the people they interact with. Bakers are friendly or surly. Cops are protective or authoritarian. Clergy are distant or reassuring. Etcetera.

And I think those associations hold for a long, long time. It takes heavy retraining to unlearn them.

So, we start with an assumption, based on that "layered" collection of impressions, then we start adding pieces of the individuals we spend time with. We learn that this person laughs when we tell a certain joke. That this touch gets a positive response. Or withdrawal. We share experiences and build something...an idea of who that other person is,

The thing is, all we get are bits and pieces. Stories about our childhoods. Knowledge of how we behave with our families. Seeing responses to incidents that are based on all that layered perception. And filtered through our own layers of understanding.

Some days, I think it's a wonder we are ever able to communicate at all.