Bring up Matching‒How Dating Apps Are disappointing us

7 August, 20217 August, 2021 / Manuel Michael Lepage Lévesque / Leave a comment

I once had a long-distance relationship that was 100% online. I was about fourteen, so for the most part of 2003 and 2004. Our relationship was limited to holding video calls and chatting on MSN messenger. Our relationship first started when we “matched” through a social platform based on a common interest which was our music preferences. We would talk for hours about music, shows, and our in-person social lives. We ended up going our separate ways after a year, and I actually ended up never meeting her in person. Of course, had I been old enough to drive, I would have most definitely met her. But I remember that back then, regardless if our relationship was online, we were genuine with one another.

In the early 2000s, online dating was quite taboo, even more so was an online relationship. To me, it was pretty natural since most of my teenage social life happened online: from online video games to randomized chat rooms. I also remember when people who said “we met online” were often greeted with suspicious looks. Fast forward to today, and oh, how things have changed! Nowadays, rarely do I hear “we met at a social event through friends.” It seems to have become the norm to meet your partner online, including from dating apps. Unfortunately, out of all my friends who meet others on Dating Apps, rarely are those who end up in long-term relationships. This observation made me think of one particular question: what is the difference between social platforms, like dating websites and dating apps?

After looking into dating app usage, it seems that there is a difference in match qualities between online dating websites and mobile dating apps. The success rate ‒in terms of lasting relationships‒ of the former seems to outweigh the success rate of the latter. As a theorist, I automatically have an urge to come up with a model – first in my head and then on paper – in order to describe dating apps and their failure to provide appreciable match qualities. From what I have observed, the typical source of disappointment in dating apps is from people who lie about who they are. Of course, if you match with someone who says they like long walks on the beach at sunset, then it would be normal for you to be disappointed if they turned out to be a grade-A couch potato.

Most articles out there talk about the editor’s, or at least the writer’s, experiences from using dating apps. I, personally, have never used a dating app, but most ‒if not all‒ of my friends have. They have all admitted to using dating apps primarily for setting up one-night “playdates” with no particular interest in forming lasting relationships. And honestly, they are pretty successful! How do they do it? They lie to their matches about who they truly are and their intentions. Why? Because it is easy and unverified. So allow me to dissect the problem and let us see if you can find a solution.

Imagine that the dating app is a narrow cobble-stoned street, in the oldest part of a city, with shops on each side (Here, I am envisioning somewhere in the old port of Montréal). On that street, there is a shopper, which is you, and there are also shop owners, which are all the other users. The shop owners display their profiles in their shop’s windows, like a restaurant menu outside for all to see. The way it works is that the shop owner is inside the shop sitting at a table. They cannot see you, and you cannot see them. If you like the profile displayed at the entrance, you may decide to enter the shop; but if you do, there is no going back out. Now, we may choose to reverse the roles. You may play the owner inside the shop with your profile shown in the window. It would then be your turn to remain oblivious to what is happening outside.

Indeed, reversing the roles is a necessary part of model building. Why? Because you need to make sure that you cover each “side” of the market’s incentives: why would the person on the street choose one shop over the other, and how many customers – or even which customer – would the person in the shop prefer?

Take a step back from the problem and pretend you are in the third-person view. You can fly through walls, you can press pause or play, and you can add or delete buildings. Basically, you are in a “creator” mode. Your new role is known as the “designer.” Since we are talking about a market filled with people shopping for others, the title of “market designer” becomes quite fitting.

Each person inside a shop is allowed to lie, as most dating apps have it. The person walking in the street cannot see the lie because they only see the profiles displayed. Now, every dating app will tell you that they use optimal algorithms to match users together. But how valid is an optimal algorithm if you are allowed to lie in the first place?

Ok, so now we are ready to look at why people get disappointed. Actually, if we dig deeper, our question should, in fact, be: why do people lie in the first place? This is because we can logically infer that lying causes users to be disappointed. Is it really as simple as I’ve said: “because it is easy and unverified”?

I, personally, think that users have some sort of belief of what other users seek. If users were interested in a long-term relationship, then their belief would include their future partner eventually finding out who they really are. Therefore, based on their beliefs, their expected benefit from being truthful would outweigh their expected benefit from lying. They would then choose to be truthful from the start. Unfortunately, this is a simplified view. In reality, many factors weigh in on whether a long-term, relationship-seeking user is truthful or not. It may be that such a user is worried about the probability of matching and realizes that their only chance to match is by lying, as the user may think everyone is doing. It is thus sensible to propose that being truthful is not always a dominant strategy.

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On the other hand, I think that users lie because their expected benefit from lying outweighs their expected benefit from being truthful. How so? Because the cost of lying on dating apps is practically null. The absence of a cost, combined with the belief that lying increases the probability of matching, would then make lying a dominant strategy. We can further conjecture, within reasons, that lying is an incentive which persists through time.

Combining both sides of the coin, we can argue that there is a clear incentive to lie and that in general, lying may seem to be a safer bet. This incentive then applies to the person walking down the street and the people in the shops.

Think about the most famous dating app out there: Tinder. You can easily observe a mix of both types of people. You have some who are genuinely looking for a serious relationship and those looking for an overnight relationship. So, given the incentive I’ve mentioned (lying in one’s profile), overnight relationship seekers may very well pretend to be serious relationship seekers. Moreover, Tinder does not verify if a user is lying. Most dating apps do seek and destroy fake profiles, but detecting a lie is an entirely different beast. Then, the explanation for why people lie on dating apps really seems to be “because it is easy and unverified.”

Going back to our model, we know that the people in the shops are most likely lying and that the profiles we see in the displays are probably either fake or possibly exaggerated. We can assume that the person walking down the street knows this as well. We also know that the dating app only cares about its revenues – or profits if you prefer – either from in-app purchases (e.g. boosts) or ads. Now, remember that your goal is to make dating apps better in terms of matching quality. So let me define what a matching quality is in order to simplify the problem. Whenever two people match and go on their first date, their out-of-the-app experience is what I define as matching quality. That means that if someone lied on their profile and you are disappointed, then you would rate your matching quality fairly low. On the other hand, if you match with someone who is even better than expected, then you would not be disappointed, so you would rate your match quality as high.

Now tell me, how would you fix dating apps, i.e. how could you maximize matching quality? From which point of view would you approach this problem? Would you imagine being the owner of the street and shops (the dating app), or would you be the people participating in the market (the users)?

I thank you infinitely for reading this post and if you would like to know more about the mysteries that surround us, please join my subscription list to keep up with my newest content. If you have any questions, please add them to the comment section and I’ll make sure to answer them as soon as humanly possible.

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Environment

Bring Up Biophilia—What makes us particularly attracted to nature

No one can dismiss the amazing feeling we get after spending some time in nature. We instantly feel relaxed and reinvigorated. Some might attribute this effect to time spent far away from work, and even though they could be correct, it is not the whole picture. Biophilia is a relatively new concept that brought the…

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Physiology

Bring Up Blood—How our oxygen gets carried throughout our body

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Computer Science

Bring Up Artificial Intelligence—What can it do for us, or more precisely what it can’t

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Bring up Choices – How an Economist Might See Them

3 July, 20217 August, 2021 / Manuel Michael Lepage Lévesque / Leave a comment

One of my favourite activities is to sit down next to a window, at a coffee shop, on a busy street, and watch people go about their daily lives. Sometimes you will capture interesting scenes such as a couple arguing or an older woman being ecstatic while on the phone, or perhaps two strangers giving each other flirting stares. I like to imagine what is going on in their minds or their lives at that moment. Maybe the couple is arguing about how one of them forgot the other’s birthday: trust me, it’s bad news if you do! Perhaps, the person receiving the phone call just got the news that she will be a grandmother for the first time. Maybe the strangers are not strangers after all. Perhaps, they just finished going on their second date and agreed to make their relationship official.

I have always been interested in human behaviours, and I have always wanted to understand them – from a distance. I am not too keen on being in large crowds or being surrounded by a lot of people. I like being in my little bubble and ignored for the most part. In fact, in recent times, I have been much more curious about the choices we make. Why do some people buy Apple products rather than Samsung products? Why do we have a particular “type” of people we prefer to date? How do we decide which job to apply to? Because I like to observe people from a distance, like a fly on a wall, I have a penchant for theoretical things rather than applied things: I like to think, imagine, and ponder.

Now, if I said: I want to go to College and study human behaviours and the choices we make. What would you suggest? Psychology? Sociology? Commerce/business? Neuroscience? Mathematics? What about Economics? Would you have suggested Economics? Most would not. For some reason, when I tell people that I study Economics, they ask me about the current hot stocks to buy, what do I think about the housing market, or what policies the government should adopt to boost our economy. I typically answer: “Sorry – I have no idea, and I don’t really care all that much, to be honest.” I am a theoretical Game Theorist and Market Designer. And, this is the way I see the world around me.

Each person in a given situation of interest is called a player or agent. Each player has choices they can make. They are sometimes referred to as actions, strategies, or alternatives. Each choice results in a level of satisfaction which is called a payoff. For example, choosing an apple product over a Samsung product must imply that somehow, you preferred the apple product at that moment. Then, we could say that buying the apple product was more satisfying and thus provided you with a higher payoff. There are different approaches to state that you prefer, say, Mac computers over Alienware computers. One of them is revealed preferences: since I saw you buy a Mac computer, whereas the only other option was Alienware computers, then you revealed to me, from your choice, that you preferred Mac computers. Another is the classical axioms of consumer preference, which would require us to dive deep into set theory. These axioms ensure that every player makes rational choices and that these choices are “well-defined.” Amongst these axioms, there is transitivity. A transitive preference is: if I prefer A to B and I prefer B to C, then it must be that I prefer A to C.

I have come across many who have told me: “economics is faulty because humans are not rational beings, but you assume that they are.” I typically respond by paraphrasing one of my undergraduate professors from Bishop’s University:

“In economics, we say that every person is rational because they make the best feasible choice in the given situation they find themselves in.”

Recall a time where someone accused you of being irrational. That individual was most likely comparing your current state to your “normal” state. That is, the difference in your behaviour is what made them believe that you were being irrational. However, in economics, we look at every infinitesimal timestamp, as well as their environment. These elements are used to determine what actions are feasible to you. Given these feasible actions, your choice of action is rational. Hence, agents behave ‘rationally.’ Immediately, you will notice that an economist’s definition of rationality is different from the everyday use of the word ‘rational.’ So, does this mean that classical preferences and revealed preferences explain every choice we make? At this moment in time: no. The concept of preferences is highly theoretical, and thus we must conduct experiments to show that they are correct. Mathematically, they make sense, but experimentally, sometimes things do not go according to plan. So, when experiments do not match the theory, what does one do? We reevaluate the hypothesis. In fact, we say that classical preferences and revealed preferences hold under certain assumptions.

So, we have players, strategies, preferences and payoffs, and rational agents. These are the building blocks I use. The next step is to ask myself: why would a player want to make a certain choice? That is, I seek the incentives of each player and determine what kind of strategies I am dealing with. If choice A gives you a higher payoff than choice B, then would it not be better for you to choose A? Would A not strictly dominate choice B? By doing so, it is sometimes possible to conjecture a reasonable outcome or solution. The only problem is that our choices are usually conditional on something else. In Game Theory, choices are typically conditional on other players’ choices. Then, we would specify that your choice A strictly dominates your choice B, if its payoff is higher, conditional on the other players’ choices. This theory works very well if everyone knows everyone’s set of actions.

On the other hand, it is much more realistic to consider the fact that we do not know with certainty what another person will do. Think about the game rock-paper-scissors. Do you know for sure what the other person will choose? No. However, you can have a belief of what they will do. You may tell yourself: “Oh, this person always chooses paper. So I will go with scissors.” Since there is a probability that they will not choose paper, it is only a belief, never a fact. Also, economists will consider your beliefs to be updatable. That is, your belief of the other person’s choice may change over time. In fact, if you did choose scissors, but the other person chose rock, then you just lost that round. What if they said “best of three.” Then you go again and repeat the game. But this time, you may think that because you just played scissors, they will think “surely they (you) wouldn’t go for scissors again!” and since you think they would say such a thing, then you decide to play scissors again. Suppose the other person knows you well and is sure that you will have this exact thinking process. Then they might play rock again. Now, what if you also knew them well? This back-and-forth reasoning is a defining feature in sequential games or repeated games.

Now that I have explained how I see the world around me, why is this useful? Game Theory explains a lot of our interactions in a basic way. It can explain why some couples argue differently than others. Sometimes a couple will use a tit-for-tat strategy where, if you say something hurtful to me, I will say something hurtful back to you and so on. Or it may be a tit-for-two-tats where, if you say something hurtful to me, I will ignore it. If you say something hurtful again, I will unleash hell onto you and bring up the time you forgot my birthday!

Alternatively, if you just turned 18, unexpectedly got pregnant, and you want to phone your mother to tell her, but she doesn’t know. Then perhaps you will adopt a specific strategy (sequence of actions) that will minimize the possibility of an adverse reaction from your mother. For instance, you may simultaneously announce your pregnancy and the marriage proposal from your romantic partner, who wishes to bring up the child with you. Your mother might not be as upset as if you had only announced the pregnancy. Thanks to your strategy, your mom is now compassionate and understanding, which makes everyone better off. To you, dear readers, what was a strategy that you recently used to minimize negative results?

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Neuroscience

Bring Up Intelligence—How IQ tests do not measure how smart we really are

It is so common to compare ourselves with others, and it is even more common to assume that other people are smarter than us. In those cases, we forget to consider that many types of intelligence exist, not only one. However, it is easy to think of ourselves as stupid if we fail our mathematics…

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Art

Bring Up Tattoo—How it can be possible to mark our skin permanently

Not all appearance alterations are created equal; some may be more short-lived and others more permanent. If you think of tattoos, they mostly belong to the second category. So thinking carefully about certain aspects of the tattoo becomes imperative. Things like the symbolism or the artistry behind your new piece shouldn’t be random. Choosing a…

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Human Development

Bring Up Grad School—What Is the Reality Behind Higher Education

For people who want to pursue studies after completing high school, university studies may look very attractive. So, undergraduate studies may lead to graduate studies. However, undergraduate studies are not the same as graduate studies. The latter is not only more complicated, but it is also very different. First of all, contrary to your undergrad,…

28 August, 202128 August, 2021

Bring Up State of Panic – What makes us completely lose it

20 February, 20212 March, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

Waking up in March 2020, while the whole COVID-19 pandemic was unravelling, was no cup of tea. I was foolishly thinking at first that this pandemic wouldn’t change much in our daily lives. After a couple months, I got hit really hard by the observation that things couldn’t be further from the normal we used to know. I was forced to realize that this situation would remain so for a very long time. Given that I had to plan my wedding for summer 2021 and manage a website by myself which got launched no earlier than January 2020, I found this situation considerably troublesome. I won’t hide that this ordeal was a huge anxiety trigger for me. My biggest concern was especially the difficulty getting food. Before the pandemic started, I usually proceeded to order my groceries online, but now it was simply impossible to find an available delivery slot. My fiancée and I came to realize that we had no other choice than to walk down to the grocery store ourselves.

Yet our troubles were still far from over. Before we could even see the entrance of the grocery store, we were forced to notice the interminable lineup. I’ve heard that Montréal got hit pretty hard on that front compared to other regions in Quebec, and from what I experienced, I couldn’t agree more. The lineups were often so long that it would typically take us, my fiancé and I, well over an hour to simply get into the store. At the entrance, we were informed that only one of us could enter. So naturally I went in. I only started picking up the grocery to discover suddenly that most essentials were out of stock. Think about flour, sugar, eggs, canned foods, toilet papers and more. This was all so far out of my already established habits that it was sufficient enough to trigger an unbearable anxiety episode. It got so bad, at one point, that I had totally given up on even contemplating being productive. Watching Rom-Coms was my main distraction and was definitely what kept me going day after day. Months into the pandemic, with the help of my already busy fiancé, I decided to kick myself in the rear and do something about it.

The change of mindset was accompanied by summer and its relaxed restrictions. The possibility to see friends and family was more than welcome. Altogether, it was sufficient to have me overcome the anxiety which made me go through somewhat resembling more of a normal life. With perspective, I can say that my anxiety had manifested itself through avoidance and immobility, often referred as Freeze when we talk about this topic. There are, nonetheless, other possible reactions when faced with this same situation. The reactions can be so different that if we compare two of them, they may look completely contradictory. For example, some may become slobs, not doing much really, and some might develop a full-blown panic, hoarding everything on their paths. From a narrow point of view, we may interpret the latter reaction as selfish; however selfishness is not the driver behind this behaviour, fear is.

I feel confident enough to state that most of us have never experienced anything similar to this before. The closest thing that we may have experienced are natural disasters, accidents and attacks. All of those are very localized and in all of those situations we might expect help from outsiders. In the case of this pandemic, everyone was affected. We could only seek help from within us. A lot of people were quick to jump to the most horrific conclusion. Without toilet paper, what would we do? People got so afraid of missing essentials that they hoarded as much as was possible creating a massive shortage in grocery. This was perceived to be enough to validate their actions when in fact it was just the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, this shortage may have been avoided if people kept their buying habits unchanged and not going full rampage mode on the grocery aisles.

When we learn to understand the elements that contribute to the development of anxiety, we are in a better standing to act in a more moderate way. A way that doesn’t give in to a state of panic, or even fear for that matter. Truly enough, years ago, I thought that anxiety merely originated from being overwhelmed for a very long time. It was only from one of my university courses that I discovered that anxiety was truly more complex than this. I found out that much like pain, anxiety is an adaptive response that is meant to protect us. It was so finely tuned to detect potential threat, that even now in the absence of significant threat to our life, it still fires up. After much research on the topic, experts came to determine very specific factors that can trigger anxiety, which they summed to the term “NUTS”. NUTS is an acronym for Novelty, Unpredictability, Threat to ego and finally Sense of control. Typically, the more of these elements are present in a situation, the more anxiogenic (causing anxiety) this situation is said to be.

Let’s use this current pandemic as an example to illustrate these elements. The novelty aspect speaks for itself. We have never encountered anything even slightly similar in our life. The pandemic was the result of an exposure to a new strain of coronaviruses (Sars-Cov-2) that, even though was not very deadly, was efficiently spreading. When we came across this virus last spring, we knew barely anything about it. This brings me to the second aspect, unpredictability. We certainly didn’t know what the proper protocol was to apply when dealing with this, nor did we know how long this pandemic would last. We clearly didn’t know if we were in contact with it or not, viruses are invisible to eye scrutiny and this particular virus could even be spread by asymptomatic people. Also unknown was what our immune reaction would be if or when we came in contact with it. This last unpredictability was also appealing to the third aspect of anxiety, threat to ego (self). At last we have the sense of control aspect of anxiety which in this case is not very impressive. The only real control we have over the situation is our reaction, which we don’t have much control over to begin with.

With all that said, it’s not surprising that the anxiety triggered may have been intense for many of us. Sometime so intense that it would have translated into fear in some and panic in others. Panic is often accompanied with emotionally compromised decisions that are taken in the spur of the moment and wouldn’t be repeated in normal circumstances. This brings me back to the toilet paper hoarding problem I’ve mentioned earlier. This behaviour is not very popular in our everyday life, but in times of panic, it is widely common. People momentarily stop thinking about the wellbeing of others and primarily think about theirs. Considering that when anxious people are easy to jump to the worst-case possible scenario, rumours about possible toilet paper shortage is enough to instigate fear in people’s mind and react accordingly. Hoarding also proves to be a way for people to gain a sense of control over the situation.

In a couple of months, we will be marking our first year into this pandemic. Things have now begun to feel like a new reality. We still would prefer our life to go back to normal, but this new everyday existence has now become more bearable. Without the common state of panic that many experienced early on, people have currently resumed to think about the wellbeing of others. We can again observe acts of generosity and compassion to others. We have come a long way and, as long as we remember to look for the components of anxiety, we can learn to better cope with what life decides to throw at us.

To help you respond better when anxiety starts to hit, you need to wonder about NUTS and ask yourself how you can decrease novelty (e.g. Reading, be careful not to become obsessed, which you exacerbate anxiety), diminish unpredictability (e.g. plans for as many scenarios as you may be able to come up with), lessen the possible threat to ego (e.g. set measure to protect yourself, for COVID-19 pandemic, it could be distancing, wearing protective equipment or even staying home) and finally increasing control (e.g. learn ways to control what you can, could be trying to moderate emotion, maintaining relationship, fixing a work schedule, etc.).

Bring Up Racism – When systemic discrimination hurts people

13 February, 202125 February, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

I want to start by stating that I am not an activist, nor am I pretending to be. What I am is an intellectual trying to communicate, what I can observe and interpret from my own experience, with the rest of the world. From this you can surely come to the conclusion that I do not join walks, protests or anything similar, and you would be totally right. However, this is not because I don’t support the vision of a world based on equality. It’s because I truly believe that real changes come from within us. We may try as hard as we can to convince people to change their mind and habits, but you may never achieve it at the end. However, despite the fact that we’re all flawed human beings, we all have the potential with some deep introspection to find the willpower to improve. In light of the recent events, I want to share with you the thinking process responsible for racism and other discrimination. Although this process starts early on, the only way to fight its perversion is awareness.

There were clearly many events characterized by injustice happening this last year, too many of you want my opinion. Amongst the one that reached the front page of newspapers, we could count the death of George Floyd which led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and also the indigenous woman Joyce Echaquan that died soon after recording slurs made by hospital staff. These are only two of the many, but it speaks loudly about the possible consequences of racism. It is worth mentioning that racism may affect any visible minority, even though the media tend to focus on only one group at a time.

Last year, Mr. Floyd, an African-American man, was arrested by the police. To apprehend the man, the police officer found it necessary to immobilize the suspect by using excessive forces on his neck resulting in the sudden and untimely death of Mr. Floyd. Before his life was taken so abruptly, he clearly expressed to the police officer that he couldn’t breathe. That the police officer could not adjust the restraint, following the hearing of such concerning complaints, is totally despicable. Although other explanations were suggested, this may still be the result of discrimination against black communities, which has always been completely misplaced. The silver lining of this tragedy is the sudden emotional unrest that has emerged giving enough fuel to start a movement called Black Lives Matter. The movement carried by the unleashing of walks and protests worldwide had the honourable objective to fight police brutality led against black people.

Joyce Echaquan, an indigenous (Atikamekw) woman, first went to a hospital for stomach complaints and subsequently got hospitalized. While she was hospitalized, she was giving morphine, a pain medication, in order to soothe the profound discomfort she was experiencing. The amount of morphine given seemed to alarm her; therefore she proceeded to record a cry for help live on Facebook, stating that she was being overmedicated. Shockingly, by the end of the video we could hear the nurses exchanging racist comments about her. Soon after, she died of what seemed to be an adverse reaction to morphine. We don’t know yet if the death resulted from mistreatment, but it is obvious that the treatment was unprofessional and blatantly inhumane given that it took place in a hospital. The main role of a hospital is to provide care and this is certainly not how you care for patients.

Government officials are also not impervious to racism, we could hear Trump about four years ago making unsubstantiated statements about Mexicans. To support his ideology to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S., he went on to claim that Mexicans are all either stealing American jobs or are criminals such as drug dealers, rapists and thieves. To reduce a complete nation to such a negative view is not only completely irrational, it’s also utterly unfair. Mexicans may have different opportunities than Americans, but that doesn’t make them lesser in any possible ways.

Racism is a form of discrimination that reduces individuals to their skin colour. To associate any specific attribute based on physical characteristics is wrong and science has invalidated many times already. There are absolutely no scientific grounds that support a link between what you look like and what you can or cannot do. That isn’t how each of us is programmed. We are all individuals with differences, and we all must have a chance to make our proofs. Everyone must stop judging the book by its cover.

To do that we must understand where it all comes from. Let’s start by acknowledging that, like most words in our dictionary, race is a man construct. It’s a noun used to indicate the morphological and cultural differences between men. As I said this has no scientific basis whatsoever and multiple DNA studies have repeatedly been unable to observe any significant differences between the so-called races. Race is a human construction that is a total myth. That is why we shouldn’t refer to races any more than we should call all eccentric women, witches.

We have to understand that people, including you and I, have an innate ability to discriminate at a very young age between situations and objects to better establish the safety of our surrounding environment. However, when we come into adulthood, discrimination may be influenced by outsiders and come to reinforce some of our already formed biases. What I’m trying to convey here is that discrimination isn’t what’s wrong but what we’re all doing with it that is. Discrimination can’t be stopped. Still, what we can control is how we come to understand it. It’s easy to use our discrimination as an overgeneralization and use it to justify our behaviour, but this isn’t OK. Also, I can’t believe I have to say this but committing a hate crime to justify another hate crime is petty and awful. As the saying goes: “An eye for an eye and everyone ends up blind.”

We have to remember that crimes can be committed by anyone and that everyone is responsible for their own behaviour. And thus I would like to extend awareness to all discrimination forms be it from a different skin colour, a different job, a different health status, a different economic status, a different sexual orientation or identification, a different ideology, a different culture or other. The way you talk, you think, you move, you care and more shouldn’t make you inherently more or less prone to mistreatment. You all ought to be judged entirely on your actions and not on your looks.

Photo by Mathias P.R. Reding on Pexels.com

To achieve this we have to question our biases and dig deep. Some biases are so ingrained that we don’t even realize their nature. As an exercise to help you distinguish biases, brainstorm about subjects currently inducing polemics, which could stem from any of the aforementioned subjects. For example, let’s take sexual orientation as a category and let’s pick women as the subject. During the brainstorming process, you might come up with words like weak, fragile, crazy, emotional, natural parents, etc. These are all common descriptive features, but at this point you must ask yourselves how applicable are these ideas to the women around you. You will surely find out that not all women actually fulfill these characteristics. You may also try to relate all these ideas to men, this time. You will probably easily find that many men do possess those characteristics. My expectation is for you to discover, at the end, that no specific characteristic is able to properly describe a group of people. By coming to this conclusion, you will come to see these as what they really are, biases. Eventually, if you keep repeating activities like this, you may succeed undoing some of those negative biases, or at least stopping them from committing injustice to the people around you.

Photo by Wayne Fotografias on Pexels.com

We, including me, can all benefit from this exercise. One of my most recent experiences involves a person that was a true look-alike of someone who, in the past, has hurt me. That person was a perfect stranger, but somehow, I felt a compulsion to distrust the person right away. After analysis, I realized that I was actually mistakenly expecting that stranger to behave exactly as that lousy person did. With that awareness, I decided to fight the compulsion to naturally distrust that person who was yet completely blameless. This experience may seem mundane, although it’s a clear example that everyone, including me, can be guilty of acting based on biases. So let’s all pledge this year to be a better judge of character and try as hard and as compassionately as we can to improve the way we treat and think about people.