When you smile at someone (or a room of someones), one of the things that happens is that their mind, in interpreting that smile, flicks at the muscles that make them smile, too. Part of figuring out the facial expression of someone else lies in "trying it on" in a very small-scale way. This is so automatic, so incredibly fast, that we usually don't even realize it happens.
Equally, when someone talks to you, they're referencing what they imagine you to be like - what words they think or know the two of you share meanings for, what processes in you work like and how to manage them, and so on. Again, this is typically automatic, but a little less so; we can catch ourselves doing it.
It's tempting to say that there's a mini-you living in the heads of those that you know well, an imaginary representative that they constantly carry around. And this meshes well with a lot of colloquialisms; we can groan or giggle in anticipation of what family members might think of this or that, and be right about that anticipated response as often as not.
It's also tempting to say that we pick up on patterns of action, values, and meaning from each other, and just carry those around, assembling such imaginary representatives from spare parts in our minds when the need comes up. That in a moment, seeing you smile, others have the impulse of smiling, and the memories of you, all fly together in their mind.
I suspect that the truth is somewhere in between, containing elements of both, and a whole bunch of other things as well.
You know those days that you walk in the door and you're just steaming mad at someone? And they haven't done anything?
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those days when someone you care about forgot to the dishes yesterday and you are on your way home from work and you anticipate that they won't have done them today. You sit on the bus, fuming at them, phrasing an argument that you begin to have with their imaginary person *in your head*. They present logical arguments against it (why didn't you say something? why didn't you do the dishes instead? etc.) and you now have to come up with counter arguments. Worse yet, they're good arguments since they're the ones you would have used.
Then you stump across the pavement and open the door and there they sit, and you swear they're smarming you just by sitting there. And then you ask in that dangerous tone of voice "So. Did you do the dishes today?" and they glance back, completely oblivious to your mood. "Yeah".
And you're done. There's still anger there. You had an argument completely within yourself but it was directed at that puppet that is them in your own head. But they've actually done nothing to deserve it.
Rather frustrating, as things go.
Good god, I've totally done that.
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