edaniel

So why doesn't life come with references? You meet people - at work, on the street, in the store, in the subway - and you know nothing. You get a superficial image of appearance, but nothing deeper, no content. And what is appearance, fashion? An opaque layer covering personality, or a translucent expression of personhood? It probably depends on the person, but how can you know with no background information? I'm all in favor of having a references, someone's friends providing their objective opinion of friends: ex-girlfriends, best friends, colleagues. Enough to give a balance opinion of who and what someone really is, almost a scorecard for someone up front. To get a reading on how much bullshit someone is likely to spew, on whether they are worth the investment of serious interest or only a casual, noncomittal fling. Cearly, some people are completely obvious: frat boys live an image because they have nothing worth expressing of their own, stupid people will follow any hip trend that seems popular, on and on. But seeing as the majority of people are obvious and vacuous, where does that leave people actually worth knowing? Can you tell if someone is interesting based solely on appearance? I could see hundreds of fascinating people every day walking the streets and subways of NYC, but i can't tell solely by how they look. Pop-up references would make the world a better place.