Do you believe you can tell if someone is compatible with you based on how they look, write, and speak from afar (online)?

[HawkPerception]

Watch this video and you'll get my meaning.

Yes

No

A total of 12 votes were cast: 4 girls and 8 guys. See detailed results

[TheRealPepperPotts]

I think the point of Passengers is to make people think. To question the ethics. To challenge themselves on what they would do in that situation. There's what is right, and then there is what is real. I cannot imagine anyone could know how they would cope with that kind of scenario. For me personally, I'd like to believe I would not do that, and from an ethical perspective, of course it isn't right and I wouldn't.

But I also know how the human brain is affected by isolation, and unless we have been there, we don't know. It's like watching the Great British Bakeoff; I can sit in my chair and calmly critique the dumb decisions they make, but I'm not in the game. I have no time pressure, no publicity pressure, nothing to stress me. I can engage my thinking brain and evaluate what's best to be done.

https://psychiatry.uchicago.edu/news/how-social-isolation-affects-brain

I think Passengers is meant to horrify. I think it's meant to have us screaming "No, don't do it". Aurora doesn't get to decide if she is compatible with him, again bringing up an ethical question and her horror at discovering he essentially stalked her (!). I think that's the goal of the story, though. I don't think everyone necessarily has to like it, but I think it's meant to engage and not just entertain. Would I like being picked out of 5000 people to be the sole companion of a crazy lonely man for the rest of my life? No, it would freak me out. But I have to figure out how to deal with that situation and make the best of it. And technically, in the end, he was able to make it right and she did end up with the choice.

To answer the original question, can we tell if we are compatible with someone online? I think to a degree, if people are telling the truth (and that's a big if). But we have to be practical and sensible, too. If we are on a dating site, it's kind of the only option we have to start with, and the only way to learn that is to also cover the hard stuff, too. Like religion, politics, appearance, values, expectations for relationship goals, etc. But I don't think it can solely be determined online. I mean seriously, I'm not going to engage myself to someone I only know from online chats, LOL! :D

[HawkPerception]

As always well said, and that's pretty much my take on it as well. But I will say there is one thing I disagree with you on:

"I think to a degree, if people are telling the truth (and that's a big if)."

There are people that can fake their personalities in person for years to get with someone and then reveal their true colours only after they're married.

At some point, you just have to take the leap of faith and trust that what they're saying and how they've been around you is true. Some people also have better intuition or an understanding of micro-expressions, gestures, and tone of voice to pick up on whether or not someone is being truthful more so than others.

Women nowadays live too much in fear, thinking that every man has a high chance of being a predator.

Sometimes living in ignorance truly is bliss. It's like when you don't know snakes can be venomous. They're not as scary if you just think they can bite you at worst. But once you learn that some are venomous, you suddenly fear that chance that every single one of them could be venomous and you start letting your fear control you.

But I do agree that you should not engage yourself to someone you only know from online chats. You definitely learn a lot more about someone in person from the things I mentioned... micro-expressions, gestures, tone of voice, how comfortable they are with touch, how much eye contact they make, etc.

[1073sucks]

Only partially. Not entirely.

[OlderAndWiser]

I can tell certain things from how they write; primarily, it's a good indication of intelligence. But there are many other factors involved in compatibility.

[CupcakeTheDestroyer]

So here’s the thing about The Passengers. That movie, for guys it’s just a movie. For women, it’s psychological horror. This man, in this isolation, becomes obsessed with a woman he’s never met before, forced her pod to open so he’s no longer in isolation so now they can both die together, when she’s understandably upset at finding out he had the option not to doom her like he was doomed, he wouldn’t leave her alone until she accepted his apology. She had no privacy, no sense of space, and they tried to make it seem like “Aw, look at him trying so hard to win her approval, how sweet. Of course she still likes him and his cuteness.” No, he purposely broke her boundaries that she had set just because his anxiety about knowingly doing something she didn’t want had to come before her processing her feelings about everything. She was not a person to him, she was an object of desire and they wrote it so that she’s pretty much only that.


You know what would have been a better version of the movie? If he had watched everyone’s tapes and stuff, found out about the guy in the pod next to his and learned he’s a single dad who gave up everything for his kids, he finds the tape of someone 10 pods down and learns they’re an artist desperate for a new start, he finds a little girl who dreams of playing on meteorites in that way that little kids do, and the movie progresses with him and him alone dealing with all of the maintenance and taking care of the ship and he still dies at the end but instead of having this girl who he forced out of her pod to talk about it, the ship just shows them from its internal cameras and he’s honored as a hero when they make their colonization on that new planet. That would have been a great story, same thing, but with less creep vibes and centering on the idea that women are less than a person enough that you can just take them away from everything they were hoping for and they’ll still love you because they don’t have any other choice in isolation. Their entire experience only ends positively bc the real situation is she would have been raped if she didn’t give him what he wanted to begin with.

[HawkPerception]

@TheRealPepperPotts Would you say you agree with this?

[TommyMountainFigure]

I personally have no desire to find out.

I have friends both online and outside of the web, but I am happy with the dynamic of keeping the two entities separate.

[HawkPerception]

But do you believe you can tell if you're compatible with someone through those aspects?

[TommyMountainFigure]

Assuming they are telling the truth you mean?

[HawkPerception]

So I'll take that as a no haha

[TommyMountainFigure]

Lol I guess, but the thing is, nobody ever has to lie to me because I never want anything other than friendship online. I also tend to find because of that, I know a lot about a lot of people which never goes beyond what they tell me.. I find friendships like that very refreshing.

[HawkPerception]

I wasn't asking about what you wanted. I was asking if you thought it was possible.

[TommyMountainFigure]

No I don't think it's possible

[DishLady]

Absolutely. The way a person carries and expresses themselves are indicators of your emotional and intellectual compatibility.

[HawkPerception]

I agree fully. However, you have to be better at judging people than others. Most of society seems lacks that judgment ability.

[DishLady]

I sort of do it for a living. I’ve got an 80/20 accuracy reading right now.

[HawkPerception]

That's awesome.

I don't do it for a living, but I can't remember being wrong about my intuition/judgment (it's a mix of both). Funny thing is... the military is now trying to train their soldiers intuition because it's proven to be a real thing.

[DishLady]

Yeah. I’ve found that some guys have really strong “gut feelings” while girls are trained out of it as kids and told to “be nice” so it messes with our instincts, but I work with behavioral patterns for the most part. It’s fun… like a puzzle.

[LiamJHayden]

No, but I can often tell if we are not compatible based upon someone's online personality.

[PBandJ_Nerd]

I think it takes actually being together to really decide on compatibility.

[bobby_bush_eater]

I think a lot of people think we can but the monotonous daily tasks of actually being with someone is far different than through any other medium

[ChicoFromThe305]

I think it's possible to maybe have an idea

[abc3643]

Compatible? No

Incompatible? Yes

[Malwi93]

nah, one should really not judge by a cover