Don't Call Your Projections "Reality"

Today something reminded me of a dialogue I once had with a woman, Catherine, who was trying to make me dislike another woman. We were at a cafe, and one of the other two people that were there with us mentioned Mary. I had never met Mary, but I was about to listen to a ...review of her by Catherine. I never asked for that, but I would be totally OK with her viewpoint if it was presented to me just as what it was; an opinion, not necessarily the reality of who Mary was...

In the beginning, I was just listening. Catherine talked for about 15 minutes, revealing personal information of Mary's life, which is something I don't like, spreading a clearly judgmental dust over her whole monologue.

The couple that was with us knows Mary, but they were trying to keep a distance from what was being said, smiling and trying to be humorous, as an effort to lighten the atmosphere, and also, because they know I don't like people who share serious personal information of other people in their absence.

At some point, Catherine said: "What can I say... That's Mary". I calmly responded: "Catherine, dear, that's not necessarily Mary, but it is definitely the Mary you see". She was surprised by my response, but this wasn't enough for her to stop. She continued by saying: "When you'll meet her, you'll see the same". "Maybe yes, maybe no", I said.

I changed the subject, and the conversation had a different orientation for almost an hour, but I could feel her boiling within because of our dialogue about Mary. It was like the whole world had moved forward in time, but she was internally stuck on the previous chapter...

In a moment of silence, while I was looking around and the couple stared at their smartphones, she took the opportunity to take us back to where she could feel relieved (if she managed to persuade me). She told me in an almost sweet way that I was a bit rude earlier (!) when we talked about Mary, and she asked why I didn't trust her ability to understand another person's character.

I have met many times people that take it personally when you don't agree with them, and they interpret everything as if we all have a personal vendetta with them. The fact that she also characterised it as rudeness was a little surprise, but what can I say... We all have our dark spots inside, and we need to bring them under the light of awareness and investigation.

There is no point in describing the rest of the conversation in detail. I just kept expressing my thesis, declaring that I prefer to shape my own opinion about people and not seeing them through the eyes of others. It is as simple as that. And it doesn't have to do with trust or mistrust. It's just that, you know, I have to have met a person before forming an opinion about who and what they are.

We all talk about others, and Mary could be very close to what Catherine described, but she could also be something totally different, or more than what Catherine's attention has caught. Because Catherine, like everybody, projects on Mary (on the external world) things that are analogous to her internal field. I will see Mary in a way that will be analogous to my background, my way of thinking, my own dark spots, the degree to which I am able to be objective and not project my complexes on her, etc.!

Then, I will express that opinion to myself, in my head, by starting like this: "From my viewpoint, Mary is...". And I will know that this will not necessarily be exactly the reality of Mary, but whatever I will have projected on her, trying as much as I can to be aware of my own personality and my own way of interpreting the external field...

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Anthi Psomiadou — CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International : Credit must be given to the creator/ Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted/ No derivatives