I have repeatedly stated that outward appearances aren’t important to me, and I’ve said that even though the title of this site is “Girls with Big Books” actual big books aren’t important. I’ve been telling you that what I care about is what’s in a person’s mind, how they think and act, and that I prefer the nerdy, intellectual type, regardless of how they look or how big books they read.

But sometimes I have to question if I’m really like that. I recently saw the photo of Paris Hilton below and I must admit, when I saw her sitting there reading Sun Tzu’s book I suddenly found her pretty attractive. It didn’t last long, but seriously, that’s not something anyone should have to go through!

Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton

But what is the reason for my momentary infatuation with the little heiress? I’ll admit that I don’t know as much about her as most other people seem to do, but what I do know has always made me feel that she is not someone I like to spend any time with.

But even though such thoughts usually make people unattractive to me, I still thought she looked rather nice in that picture. Ok, she still looks like a piece of plastic (seriously, she looks like a RealDoll, and that’s damned creepy), but still much more attractive than usual.

So, evidently I judged her because of the book she was reading and there’s where my hypocrisy comes in. Normally I might tell people that we shouldn’t judge people by such a momentary glance; that she is reading that book essentially tells us nothing. But even so I let myself judge her because of it.

Worse than that though, her plastic appearance made me judge her again right after that. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that she isn’t truly interested in the book and that it is all just a show for the cameras. And maybe it was, but I still judged her twice in a few short seconds based solely on a short visual impression, and that’s not something I want to do.

But is it really important? Well, maybe not.

Yes, I can judge people too quickly. We can all do that. But what I think is important is to recognize that we’re doing it and analyze it. I know that it’s wrong to assume things about people like that, and as long as I realize that before I act on my first impressions, I think it’s ok.

I guess that’s what I’m trying to say here. We’re all prone to being superficial at times, as a knee-jerk reaction, but we don’t have to feel bad about that. It seems to be something natural, built-in. The important thing is that we think it over instead of just accepting our first assumptions as truth.

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