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wispfoxA reply to a comment in my journal way back with my indexing/faces/etc musings felt like something I ought to post, as well. (this did get quite a lot longer than the original reply, however)
The question was in terms of how I develop a sense of someone's core self, in terms of I get the whole thing all at once, or if I get more and more of it as I get to know them better.
My reply:
It's gradual, definitely. But... only sorta.
In some cases (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
australian_joe being the most recent example), I develop a basic sense of a person very quickly upon meeting them, and later interactions with them will help confirm it. More often, the initial sense takes a bit longer to form. Rarely, very rarely, later interactions will modify that basic sense. It's a lot disconcerting to have this happen, though, because it means my basic sense was wrong so I was attaching memories and information to an inaccurate memory placement, and means I can't trust my sense of what a person will or will not do. Tends to be fairly damaging if it's a major difference between my sense of a person and their actual selves.
The confirmation pieces are neccessary, however, for someone to stick in my head for a long period of time even without interaction. Just the sense is not enough.
In the case of someone I meet online, I can develop a sense of a person, but I don't get the basic framework on which I usually attach the confirmations of that sense. So I can only get a sense up to a certain (insufficient and not cohesive) point, and rarely will think of someone I only know online when not interacting with them.
Like, I won't notice ifwolfieboy or bridgetester (the people I know well enough from solely online interaction that I am intending to do something about meeting them) were to vanish for a week or two, unless someone were to point it out. After a week or two, I might notice. Maybe.
However, as my sense of a person is confirmed and that basic framework is solidified, it's also true that interactions from when I only had that initial impression and not much more will not _feel_ like them in my memories, if references are made to them. Sometimes they will feel like there was no one there at all (even though there had to have been, for the interaction to take place), sometimes the sense of them is so hazy that it feels really odd to think of them as the person I know _now_. That happens less as I confirm/fill in that foundation, because my mental map of a person becomes more solid and they are therefore more "real" to me. It's also much less easy to modify my mental map of a person if something I have in their basic sense is wrong, the more time that has been spent learning who they are.
It's like... I have a puzzle, with a basic structure, outlining who a person is. That structure means that someone caught my attention enough in-person for that to have been formed. Interacting with them after I have that structure fills in pieces, making them more solid in my head. It's fairly difficult for someone I have a sense for to surprise me, because in order to surprise me, they have to do something which doesn't fit my sense of them.
If there are too many pieces that don't feel like they fit, however, I may have to effectively start at the beginning, or make an entirely new structure. The problem with this, however, is that if my initial sense of a person is _wrong_, how do I find an accurate one? I don't even know how I find the _first_ one I find. :)
If I meet someone online entirely, I don't _have_ that structure. I can, to an extent, still build a picture of a person, but the pieces have no way of being held together, and have no form. They are more real than not at all, but such people don't stick in my head very well.
I have no idea how much sense I just made, since this entire process is _not_ a verbal thing. At all. But there y'all have it! And now I go take care of my cat!
The question was in terms of how I develop a sense of someone's core self, in terms of I get the whole thing all at once, or if I get more and more of it as I get to know them better.
My reply:
It's gradual, definitely. But... only sorta.
In some cases (
australian_joe being the most recent example), I develop a basic sense of a person very quickly upon meeting them, and later interactions with them will help confirm it. More often, the initial sense takes a bit longer to form. Rarely, very rarely, later interactions will modify that basic sense. It's a lot disconcerting to have this happen, though, because it means my basic sense was wrong so I was attaching memories and information to an inaccurate memory placement, and means I can't trust my sense of what a person will or will not do. Tends to be fairly damaging if it's a major difference between my sense of a person and their actual selves.The confirmation pieces are neccessary, however, for someone to stick in my head for a long period of time even without interaction. Just the sense is not enough.
In the case of someone I meet online, I can develop a sense of a person, but I don't get the basic framework on which I usually attach the confirmations of that sense. So I can only get a sense up to a certain (insufficient and not cohesive) point, and rarely will think of someone I only know online when not interacting with them.
Like, I won't notice if
wolfieboy or bridgetester (the people I know well enough from solely online interaction that I am intending to do something about meeting them) were to vanish for a week or two, unless someone were to point it out. After a week or two, I might notice. Maybe.However, as my sense of a person is confirmed and that basic framework is solidified, it's also true that interactions from when I only had that initial impression and not much more will not _feel_ like them in my memories, if references are made to them. Sometimes they will feel like there was no one there at all (even though there had to have been, for the interaction to take place), sometimes the sense of them is so hazy that it feels really odd to think of them as the person I know _now_. That happens less as I confirm/fill in that foundation, because my mental map of a person becomes more solid and they are therefore more "real" to me. It's also much less easy to modify my mental map of a person if something I have in their basic sense is wrong, the more time that has been spent learning who they are.
It's like... I have a puzzle, with a basic structure, outlining who a person is. That structure means that someone caught my attention enough in-person for that to have been formed. Interacting with them after I have that structure fills in pieces, making them more solid in my head. It's fairly difficult for someone I have a sense for to surprise me, because in order to surprise me, they have to do something which doesn't fit my sense of them.
If there are too many pieces that don't feel like they fit, however, I may have to effectively start at the beginning, or make an entirely new structure. The problem with this, however, is that if my initial sense of a person is _wrong_, how do I find an accurate one? I don't even know how I find the _first_ one I find. :)
If I meet someone online entirely, I don't _have_ that structure. I can, to an extent, still build a picture of a person, but the pieces have no way of being held together, and have no form. They are more real than not at all, but such people don't stick in my head very well.
I have no idea how much sense I just made, since this entire process is _not_ a verbal thing. At all. But there y'all have it! And now I go take care of my cat!
