Absence Makes The Heart Create Bogeymen

The old proverb that absence makes the heart grow fonder has a lot of truth...and a dark side. I think it should be quoted better as "absence makes the heart see whatever it wants to."

Because the heart does that. It makes snap judgements that are often completely wrong.

You can turn someone into pretty much anyone you want in your mind, especially when you don't actually spend time with them. That might be why the heart is said to grow fonder with absence. The heart is a fickle thing. Sometimes it only keeps the things it really likes and you get a glowing but dishonest image of perfection. Sometimes it keeps all the offensive stuff and distorts a generally good person into a despicable one.

Both untrue pictures damage us and the person we've untruthfully characterized. We all know gossip is destructive...but would gossip even be an issue if we were more careful about our hearts' tendency to make wrong judgements?

Speculation and filling in the blanks with something you imagine is something people are naturals at. It's how we can vote for totally inappropriate political figures - if you believe he believes what you believe he believes, he's the perfect candidate. Right?

To defeat the heart's tendency to picture what it wants, I think there are a few key strategies: kindness, critical thinking (which is different than being scornfully critical) and spending time actually in the presence of the real person.

Kindness is important because without it, assessments can become harsh rather than straightforwardly truthful. Thinking the best of someone until proven otherwise is not a weakness, especially if you are working to know them truthfully. But you have to be careful that kindness doesn't make you untruthful in your own mind about what you see and hear.

Critical thinking is a skill that has to be learned. It's part of learning to truthfully assess what you see and hear. To be able to understand what is rather than what we imagine to be is crucial to any good relationship, whether between friends, parents and children or spouses. Critical thinking is asking "is this idea I have correct? What is the evidence? Have I missed anything? Is there another way to look at this?"

When Ben and I first met, it was through a friend who knew us well enough to give each a good description of the other. She was able to be accurate because she actually knew us.

Then we wrote emails for several months doing our best to understand the other person's character and way of thought. We kept asking each other "is this what you mean? What makes you draw that conclusion? Why do you want to do that?"

We really liked the picture we were getting, which is why we went to the last step and spent as much time as we could with each other and our families to discover if our minds had formed an accurate picture. This is the third piece of getting through any illusions the heart might be creating.

It's very difficult to be truthful in our assessment of people we don't spend a lot of face time with. There is so much our hearts will fill in about people we aren't with that we don't even realize. Even when we are doing our best critical thinking, it can be hard to gather evidence to support conclusions when we're doing it only through writing or the reports of others. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and when you are with someone in person you are collecting lots and lots of visual "pictures" concerning who they are. The more you are with someone, the more you both relax any artificial behavior you might be putting on for their benefit and the more you have a chance to really know that other person.

If it's really important for you to know another person - and there are many people who come into our lives worth really knowing - it's invaluable to keep in mind that your heart will try to form an inaccurate picture of them. It's worth countering the heart's tendency. Because the truthfulness level of your relationships will affect your entire life.

Don't let your heart make bad images for you either way.