OK, time to resurrect an old trope:
Say you could discover what people think or say about you. But this knowledge only extends as far as it pertains to you; you can’t know someone’s thoughts about the stock market, sports or the weather, etc.
Advantages: Many. In a job interview, you could instantly know what the interviewer is thinking about you, a prospective hire. You could know what your significant other thinks about you - maybe he/she dislikes your sense of humor, or thinks you have great style. You could amaze people at how well you understand them. In any social or professional situation, knowing what people think of you could be very useful. And it could be extremely handy if one is a contestant on a reality TV show.
Drawbacks: You would, of course, know every hurtful, negative or malicious thing anyone has ever said or thought about you. But you could use this knowledge to clear up misunderstandings, conflicts, etc.
I fully expect other people to think that I’m a jerkass to a much greater extent than they’re letting on.
Say that you flipped the poll around, and asked the opposite question: “Would you want other people to know what you really think of them?” I think it’s a safe bet that the result would be a unanimous and terrified “FUCK NO!”
Sure, I’ve had the occasional moment of “if only X understood how wonderful I think they are”. But mostly, yeah, it’s the other thing.
So I suppose that if I want to keep my thoughts about others to myself, I should extend the same courtesy to them.
No. I already assume everyone thinks horrible things about me (assuming they think about me at all). At least now I can tell myself it’s because I’m paranoid. I’d hate to lose that security blanket.
But if you’re paranoid, then knowing other people’s thoughts might allay that unhappiness/concern. You could find out, “Oh, they don’t hate me after all.”
I’m pretty sure people mostly think I’m a nice person and regard me with friendly ambivalence. Which is exactly why I’m not going to shatter my blissful ignorance and find out.
Plus, and this is turning into classic SDMB-style overanalyzing, would it be ethical to choose to read others minds? As mentioned above, no one would want their mind to be read - it’s the few cubic inches of space we have left that are truly private. To take that away from everyone around you seems morally ambiguous, putting it lightly.
Whenever I hear about someone reading another person’s letters or diaries, or eavesdropping on them to learn what they think about the person doing the snooping, I wonder how they can possibly want to do that. If I hear someone talking about me, depending on circumstances I either loudly announce my presence so that they won’t say anything I don’t want to hear, or quickly move as far as away as possible to avoid hearing anything. I would never open another person’s diary or look at personal writing.
None of that has anything to do with a moral prohibition against snooping – it’s all about not wanting to know what other people think about me. I am far too insecure to ever want to know.
I think there’s a distinction to be made- I might like to know what people really think of me, but I never want to hear what they’re saying about me.
I was a supervisor once and accidentally overheard one of my employees bad mouthing me through a thin wall. At first I was hurt and surprised, because I thought we had a good working relationship. As I thought about it more I decided he could have just been venting because he was angry about some small thing and his actual opinion of me overall was good (at least that’s what I liked to tell myself). The point is, what people say about other people is very often a product of the moment and a distortion of what they really think. So I’ve always gone out of my way to NOT find out what people are saying about me.
I recently went out of my way to help an acquaintance out. She FB messaged me a thanks. Then she (meant to) FB message someone else, falsely taking credit for what I’d done. That message accidentally was sent to me. She tried to act cool, claiming that the person she’d meant to message had offered help and she didn’t want to offend the other person.
I didn’t reply. As she kept messaging more and more convoluted, complicated explanations I purposely ignored the messages just to let her stew.
So anyway, I answered the poll, “yes”. It was fun.
I tend to assume that most of the things people might dislike about me are things I can fix. Knowing the problem would make it easier to fix. A lot of people have habits that they don’t fix just because they aren’t even aware of it.
If there’s something about me that I can’t fix, I’d rather know who feels that way so that I can focus my friendliness-efforts on people who don’t find that to be a problem.
Also, as much as I’m normally a pessimist, I really do believe that most people feel more negativity about ourselves than other people feel about us. I know that I’ll forgive and forget other people’s flaws/mistakes long before I do the same about my own.
I feel like a have a pretty good talent at picking up on subtle clues (body language) when people are less than honest with me. And I gotta tell ya’, I wish I didn’t even have that, because it drives me bonkers!!
Whether my talent is real or imagined, I rather not have it! I can only guess that having the ability to actually read people’s minds WRT all things me would drive me straight to the loony bin.
I also have to wonder about the previous women in my life. I wonder how many women in my life initially didn’t think much of me at first but then changed their opinion of me once they got to know me?
Would I have even made an effort to get to know these women?. Heck, I guess the same could be said for platonic relationships as well. How many potential friendships would I have lost because of that ability?
I voted yes because I’d like to think that I could make changes or something to alter a persons opinion. In truth, I’m sure I’d be hurt, but I still hope I could take it like a man and deal with it.
I think we all deserve the privacy of our own brains. I figure that if I have a real problem with someone, it’s up to me to figure out how to communicate it or, if I choose not to, how to live with it.
So, not only do I not have a right to the other person’s thoughts, I don’t have the responsibility to read their minds.
