Sending Signals about Yourself

DGS49

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2012
15,663
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Pittsburgh
"Young people" don't seem to realize that we all send messages to the outer world about ourselves by the way we...
  • Walk,
  • Dress,
  • Groom ourselves,
  • Attach decorations and hardware to our bodies,
  • Cast our facial expression,
  • Appear to be healthy or not.
People who see us react to those signals regardless of whether they are accurate, or whether we are aware of the signals that we are sending, or whether it is our intention to send them.

Most of us think that "prejudice" is something that we can avoid, and we don't want our outlook toward people to be affected by our prejudices, but it is unavoidable.

Think about all of the assumptions people make about others who are, fat, unkempt, excessively tattooed, unkempt, slovenly...whatever. What do you immediately think about a person when the first time you see them, they are smoking? Or if their car has a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker?

Young ladies (and their clueless mothers) just love to dress like street walkers, virtually daring the Boys to say anything about it. College age women get grotesque tattoos and body piercings for what reason I can't imagine. Does it ever occur to them how foolish they will look when (if) they ever grow to adulthood?

Obesity is the worst. Someone has apparently convinced the female race that if you can convince yourself that your corpulent appearance is not gross, then you are somehow attractive. Fat is gross. Period.

And for young men, the Yassir Arafat look is quite fashionable now, along with long and unmanaged hair. I can see a two-day stubble or a beard (or clean-shaven), but to intentionally look like you just forgot to shave for 5-7 days? Seriously?

Obvioiusly, I don't get it. Of course I didn't get it when men my age had hair down to their shoulders in their teens. And it's worse when they are 70...still thinking it's "cool"? Are you shitting me?
 
"Young people" don't seem to realize that we all send messages to the outer world about ourselves by the way we...
  • Walk,
  • Dress,
  • Groom ourselves,
  • Attach decorations and hardware to our bodies,
  • Cast our facial expression,
  • Appear to be healthy or not.
People who see us react to those signals regardless of whether they are accurate, or whether we are aware of the signals that we are sending, or whether it is our intention to send them.

Most of us think that "prejudice" is something that we can avoid, and we don't want our outlook toward people to be affected by our prejudices, but it is unavoidable.

Think about all of the assumptions people make about others who are, fat, unkempt, excessively tattooed, unkempt, slovenly...whatever. What do you immediately think about a person when the first time you see them, they are smoking? Or if their car has a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker?

Young ladies (and their clueless mothers) just love to dress like street walkers, virtually daring the Boys to say anything about it. College age women get grotesque tattoos and body piercings for what reason I can't imagine. Does it ever occur to them how foolish they will look when (if) they ever grow to adulthood?

Obesity is the worst. Someone has apparently convinced the female race that if you can convince yourself that your corpulent appearance is not gross, then you are somehow attractive. Fat is gross. Period.

And for young men, the Yassir Arafat look is quite fashionable now, along with long and unmanaged hair. I can see a two-day stubble or a beard (or clean-shaven), but to intentionally look like you just forgot to shave for 5-7 days? Seriously?

Obvioiusly, I don't get it. Of course I didn't get it when men my age had hair down to their shoulders in their teens. And it's worse when they are 70...still thinking it's "cool"? Are you shitting me?
When one gets the tats, the unnatural hair colors, the multiple piercings in bizarre places, etc, what it says is "I demand that you see me as an individual", just like every other zombie who affects the exact same ornamentation and expects you to love how unique they are.
 
"Young people" don't seem to realize that we all send messages to the outer world about ourselves by the way we...
  • Walk,
  • Dress,
  • Groom ourselves,
  • Attach decorations and hardware to our bodies,
  • Cast our facial expression,
  • Appear to be healthy or not.
People who see us react to those signals regardless of whether they are accurate, or whether we are aware of the signals that we are sending, or whether it is our intention to send them.

Most of us think that "prejudice" is something that we can avoid, and we don't want our outlook toward people to be affected by our prejudices, but it is unavoidable.

Think about all of the assumptions people make about others who are, fat, unkempt, excessively tattooed, unkempt, slovenly...whatever. What do you immediately think about a person when the first time you see them, they are smoking? Or if their car has a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker?

Young ladies (and their clueless mothers) just love to dress like street walkers, virtually daring the Boys to say anything about it. College age women get grotesque tattoos and body piercings for what reason I can't imagine. Does it ever occur to them how foolish they will look when (if) they ever grow to adulthood?

Obesity is the worst. Someone has apparently convinced the female race that if you can convince yourself that your corpulent appearance is not gross, then you are somehow attractive. Fat is gross. Period.

And for young men, the Yassir Arafat look is quite fashionable now, along with long and unmanaged hair. I can see a two-day stubble or a beard (or clean-shaven), but to intentionally look like you just forgot to shave for 5-7 days? Seriously?

Obvioiusly, I don't get it. Of course I didn't get it when men my age had hair down to their shoulders in their teens. And it's worse when they are 70...still thinking it's "cool"? Are you shitting me?

Interestingly enough, reading those "signals" that other people send to you by the way they are dressed, what they are doing, or how they look is something that was passed down to you growing up. The way you are raised as a child has a great deal to do with how you perceive the signals in the form of another person's appearance.

Me? When I grew up, and "unkempt" person had several varieties for me. One who was dirty and greasy, looking like they had just put in a hard day's work was someone to respect. Matter of fact, that carried into my adulthood, as I would trust someone in the Engineering department onboard my ship more if they were a bit dirty and greasy than someone working in the same department that had a 4.0 uniform on, as it showed they worked a lot and probably knew what they were talking about. If a person was just dirty from not taking care of themselves however, I would look at that person with a bit of a narrow eye, since they didn't really appear to care about themselves.

As far as obese people being unattractive? Again, depends on what you grew up with, as there are some cultures that view fat women as attractive, more so than skinny ones. Some of those cultures view fat women as coming from rich families since they can afford enough to eat to get that way.

Tattoos? I have several myself, and each one of them has meaning to me and marks significant things to me in my life. When I see someone else with tattoos, if they are well done and placed with care on their body, I think that those mean something to them, and will generally ask about their ink. If they look like they were done by a 3rd grader, I generally don't ask, as my perception tells me that they did it just for kicks or to piss off their parents and didn't care what they put on their bodies. Same with piercings.

Yes, people do send out signals based on their appearance, but you also have to remember that your interpretation of those signals is based on your upbringing and experience through life.
 
When one gets the tats, the unnatural hair colors, the multiple piercings in bizarre places, etc, what it says is "I demand that you see me as an individual", just like every other zombie who affects the exact same ornamentation and expects you to love how unique they are.

Same could be said about people who are super fussy about their appearance. If a person is too well kept in their appearance, that makes me think they are plastic individuals who care more what people see, and in my experience, those are people to avoid as they will turn on you if they see a benefit to themselves.
 
If you want to see real prejudice, fly commercially.

When I took my first airplane trip, we were going to Florida. I guess it was 1972 or 1973. My Mom and Grandmother were taking me and my older brother on vacation. We were flying on Eastern Airlines. Mom made us wear collared shirts and shoes with heels for our flight. That single instance set the tone for how I would dress years later when flying.

Flying as an adult, I didn't always wear collared shirts and heeled shoes, but I've always dressed appropriately. I basically dressed as though I was going to get off the plane and meet a really sexy woman or someone I wanted to borrow money from.

There was a time when I was working in the music industry when I was traveling a lot, and I started getting complimentary upgrades to first class. One thing you will never see in first class is someone dressed like a slob. That's not because those in first class were people of means; the reality is that most first class passengers don't actually pay for first class tickets. No, they would get upgrades because the flight attendants had first class seats to fill, and they would give those seats to people who weren't dressed as though they were homeless.

In all my years of flying and getting upgrades, I've never seen someone in a pair of sweats and Crocs get bumped to first class...
 
"Young people" don't seem to realize that we all send messages to the outer world about ourselves by the way we...
  • Walk,
  • Dress,
  • Groom ourselves,
  • Attach decorations and hardware to our bodies,
  • Cast our facial expression,
  • Appear to be healthy or not.
People who see us react to those signals regardless of whether they are accurate, or whether we are aware of the signals that we are sending, or whether it is our intention to send them.

Most of us think that "prejudice" is something that we can avoid, and we don't want our outlook toward people to be affected by our prejudices, but it is unavoidable.

Think about all of the assumptions people make about others who are, fat, unkempt, excessively tattooed, unkempt, slovenly...whatever. What do you immediately think about a person when the first time you see them, they are smoking? Or if their car has a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker?

Young ladies (and their clueless mothers) just love to dress like street walkers, virtually daring the Boys to say anything about it. College age women get grotesque tattoos and body piercings for what reason I can't imagine. Does it ever occur to them how foolish they will look when (if) they ever grow to adulthood?

Obesity is the worst. Someone has apparently convinced the female race that if you can convince yourself that your corpulent appearance is not gross, then you are somehow attractive. Fat is gross. Period.

And for young men, the Yassir Arafat look is quite fashionable now, along with long and unmanaged hair. I can see a two-day stubble or a beard (or clean-shaven), but to intentionally look like you just forgot to shave for 5-7 days? Seriously?

Obvioiusly, I don't get it. Of course I didn't get it when men my age had hair down to their shoulders in their teens. And it's worse when they are 70...still thinking it's "cool"? Are you shitting me?
Do you personally know anyone that is more of a conformist than you are?
 
"Young people" don't seem to realize that we all send messages to the outer world about ourselves by the way we...
  • Walk,
  • Dress,
  • Groom ourselves,
  • Attach decorations and hardware to our bodies,
  • Cast our facial expression,
  • Appear to be healthy or not.
People who see us react to those signals regardless of whether they are accurate, or whether we are aware of the signals that we are sending, or whether it is our intention to send them.

Most of us think that "prejudice" is something that we can avoid, and we don't want our outlook toward people to be affected by our prejudices, but it is unavoidable.

Think about all of the assumptions people make about others who are, fat, unkempt, excessively tattooed, unkempt, slovenly...whatever. What do you immediately think about a person when the first time you see them, they are smoking? Or if their car has a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker?

Young ladies (and their clueless mothers) just love to dress like street walkers, virtually daring the Boys to say anything about it. College age women get grotesque tattoos and body piercings for what reason I can't imagine. Does it ever occur to them how foolish they will look when (if) they ever grow to adulthood?

Obesity is the worst. Someone has apparently convinced the female race that if you can convince yourself that your corpulent appearance is not gross, then you are somehow attractive. Fat is gross. Period.

And for young men, the Yassir Arafat look is quite fashionable now, along with long and unmanaged hair. I can see a two-day stubble or a beard (or clean-shaven), but to intentionally look like you just forgot to shave for 5-7 days? Seriously?

Obvioiusly, I don't get it. Of course I didn't get it when men my age had hair down to their shoulders in their teens. And it's worse when they are 70...still thinking it's "cool"? Are you shitting me?


Welcome to 2022 AD . . .

In November 2006 I flew into Dover AFB from Ramstein, Germany on a military transport heavy with occupied caskets. Up to a week prior I had been doing a six month deployment in Tajikistan and Afghanistan with a Maryland Army Reserve unit. A random encounter with a former commanding officer led me to catching a ride with several of our boys headed home for the last time.

After landing I caught a taxi off post to a diner—I hadn't eaten in a couple of days. I sat down on a stool at the counter, ordered some food and waited. I was in civilian clothes, wearing an unkempt beard, ancient, frayed ball cap and a head of unruly hair—too long for conventional army regulation.

A couple of Air Force enlisted guys walked into the diner, their uniform blouses unbuttoned, fringes all over their pockets, hands in their pockets, five o'clock shadow. They looked like the quintessential rag bags. One of the fuckers even had his head cover on backwards. I was a newly minted warrant officer at the time but they didn't know that; I must have looked like some homeless guy who had worn the same stinking clothes for days.

I remember all I could think about were the dead guys I had caught a flight back to the States with, looking at those Air Force pricks and the obvious lack of a single shit they gave about their appearance in uniform, still wearing their covers inside. I stood up off that diner stool and lit into them; I got up in their faces, whipped out a lighter and started trying to burn fringes off their pockets—I gave them both fucking barrels point blank.

Those Air Force pricks, one of them a young buck sergeant, tried to fight me right there and then, in a public place off post. The mouths on those little shits; the nerve of them.

Longish story shortened: the guy who owned the diner kicked me out but not before several of his other customers cussed me out for disrespecting "their boys" in uniform. All I could think about as I exited that fucking diner were the occupied coffins I'd flown all the way back to the States with from Germany, tasked with keeping silent vigil over whatever remains filled those caskets, and how much those dead guys wanted to be alive again.

That, in a fucking nutshell, perfectly describes our modern Age—our twenty-second year of the 21st Century.
 

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