What  a great TED talk! Ms. Fisher definitely knows what she's talking about. The most interesting facet of the talk to me, as it pertained to relationships, was when she described love as a motor mechanism of the brain. It's fascinating to me to think of love as something almost like food, something that we crave, something we want to work for and have. Love makes the world interesting, and as she said, if you're at the attachment stage of a relationship, makes it safe.  Ms. Fisher also said that "A world without love is a deadly place." It's interesting to consider; to me it seems as though without love we would simply operate as machines: Doing our work, producing children, living, dieing. Love is a fascinating thing and it was great to hear it described by such an interesting woman.

Perceptional Process

I am naive. I know that. I am exceedingly gullible and if I have decided to trust an individual then I trust them implicitly to the point where they can use my own trust against me. Because of this my perceptions of others vary drastically on one side or the other. 

On the one hand I can be quite judgmental, especially with men. I tend to have a hard time trusting that their intentions are pure and that they do not mean to do me harm. I assume the worst about a person in an attempt to protect myself from letting them take advantage of my friendship, trust, and belief in them. I've been hurt before by people I assumed the best of, who turned out to be less than resilient in their character. Therefore my thought process half of the time is, "If I assume the worst of them and they turn out better than expected, great! But if they were in fact destined to do me harm, then I have not been hurt because I never gave them my trust."

But this is not the process that brings me joy, or that seems most natural to me, the way that I, when uninhibited by fear, naturally perceive the people I come in contact with. Quite the opposite. When I meet people, unafraid, I see them as myself. I think of them as if I were them, putting myself in their shoes, wondering what their life is like, what they've been through, and believing that they are doing the best that they can under their circumstances. And I trust them. I trust that they are people of character who are not out to hurt me but rather see me just as I see them: as people. People with a story,  a past, and the best intentions. 

I believe that I can honestly say that this is how I truly perceive people; because I'm oblivious, which is not always a good thing but in this case, it is. I don't notice people on the outside much. All I see is whether or not they have a kind smile and honest eyes. Truly, that's it. Growing up I had someone in my life who I saw regularly twice a year. I loved them because they were always kind to me, gentle and caring. It wasn't until I was about 13 that I noticed that they were different. They did not have complete use of one of their hands due to a birth defect. I had never even seen that they were different. And they were. But only on the outside. The person that I loved was more "normal" than almost anyone else I knew. And that is how I see them to this day, no better, no worse than anyone else. Just themselves, and their resilient character.

Contextual Impacts

I have always enjoyed meeting new people. I find other peoples interests, opinions, beliefs, favorite sports teams and overall lives fascinating. What I do not care for is awkward encounters with strangers who disconcert me. For example, as I was walking from one end of campus to the other on crutches someone who I had never met or even seen before asked if I was ok. I was wary of this young man immediately seeing as how I didn't know who he was and his reason for beginning a conversation with me was sketchy at best. The physical context was awkward as I was attempting to make my way through a crowd of people and I was immediately repulsed by the young man due to the lack of sincerity in his voice. As an individual he seemed fake, perhaps my misconstrued interpretation of insecurity. He followed me across campus, just so that he could open the door for me, and all I could think about was how much I didn't want to be in the situation and how much he was embarrassing himself. Conversation was strained due to his constant self-depreciation, and I was running out of ways to make him feel ok about who he was as a person. I don't know if he was genuinely concerned about my well being, if it was his attempt at making a friend or his attempt at flirting, but in any case he needs to come up with some new tactics. Altogether, the physical, psychological, and social contexts proved to have a huge impact on the way I viewed my encounter with this young man and the young man himself.