And you wonder why I love High Fidelity so much, and how every time I watch it, I like it even more... So this is the concept I would like to explore a little.
So back in the day, when you wanted to get to know someone, you'd have to actually hang out, or maybe talk on the phone. As time went on, phone got replaced by AOL. Which got replaced my AIM. Which has now evolved into a slew of means of communication, many of which contain opportunities to build a profile. People use this for different reasons. Some of us choose to include the bare minimum of information, wanting to use the source as a networking tool without giving too much away. Others of us, the group that includes me, like to populate our profile with accurate, telling, in a way, defining responses and bits of information.
In the same way that a car is a moving, turning, accelerating billboard of you, a profile is a laid out, programmable, customizable advertisement for, well, you. These days, this is something that people might see before they ever meet you. This might be the second or third thing they have to judge you on after meeting you. But I'm not here to tell you that everyone should put a full description of who you are in every profile you ever create. But those of us who do make an attempt to give a selling depiction of who we are do so because we believe Rob Gordon makes a good point. 'Books, records, films - these things matter.'
I guess to be more specific, we'll talk about this in terms of dating compatibility.
I don't want to be with someone who likes everything that I like. I'm not even searching for that. So that's not the point. But your personality is reflected in so many ways.
Give me a list of your favorite movies, 1 through 20. Not 'well when I'm in this mood, I like to watch this' or 'define what genre' or any other distinction you would make when picking. List your movies. And I promise you, based on the list, I can supply a relatively accurate and possibly lengthy description of what kind of person you are. And I'm not special. So not only does this list of movies give an accurate portrayal of who are you, but if you compare it with someone else's list, side by side, you should be able to come to some pretty obvious conclusions. If one list is Billy Madison, Wedding Crashers, Old School, The Hangover, etc... and the other is Donnie Darko, Twilight, Crash, Good Will Hunting, etc... I mean I don't have to spell this out. When forced to rank, whatever kind of movie you value will seep to the top, and it will give away a piece of who you are, and will attract a certain kind of person.
Obviously, I'm not dumb enough to say if you only like comedy movies that you're not smart or interested in other things besides laughing. Again, that's not the point.
But if you can look at someone's interests and they tell you about who they are, and you can be relatively confident that your assessment has some sort of accuracy, you can then apply those traits to more aspects of their life. I'm NOT saying that having similar taste in movies is what matters most, but their taste in movies gives an example of how they approach life. It's not that you have to go to all of the same concerts, but for the most part (of course there are outliers), certain genres of music and certain artists lend themselves to certain personality traits of the fans. So all these little indications, based on things they like or value the most, piece together to create a relatively substantial image of a person. And, if you're someone that doesn't care about movies or music because the only scene you want to see is a natural waterfall and the only music you want to hear is the splashing water, then THAT gives away who you are. You cannot escape this.
When you break it down, you have to be compatible. And while you should have compatible personalities, your interests and cinematic preferences factor into that equation just as much as the clothes you wear or the car you drive. So, what's on your movie list?
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