Are You Keyhole Judging? (An Edward de Bono inspired scenario)

Interesting thread indeed.
I think we all keyhole to a degree, we may not come out in the open and say it out loud but in our minds we think...oh why did so and so do that for? without even knowing the in's and out's. I know I keyhole when all I 'hear' is the boom and gloom of individuals and make an effort to not be judgemental and offer support only to have that then thrown back with excuse after excuse. Its almost placing a 'label' on that person and as hard as it is not to do...I just think grrr bugger you, your in the not to read posts pile..KWIM?

Janie - I agree...you cant judge someone on what is in their ticker....it reflects nothing really of the person, their values ect..its just a ticker with a slight glimps and really there are only 5 lines permitted :ROFL:

For those who sit back and wont have an input...I can seee your point as sometimes big personalities have the ability to express them selves in such a comfortable, self secure way that you can feel overwhelmed that your words will be ridden over to to speak, but never the less your words are just as important...youd be surprised at how many people who would see them and be inspired to maybe speak up next time.

I hadn't seen this thread before, and I haven't read all the responses, but just wanted to share my thoughts. I seem to have come inbuilt with the empathy gene! In all seriousness I've done many personality tests/profiling etc in various workplaces and they all say that I have a natural tendency to feel empathy towards others. This can be a good thing and a bad thing! Some times I can be a bit too empathetic. and give people a bit too much 'benefit of the doubt', some times more than they deserve IYKWIM. But in general it has treated me very well.

Using the keyhole judging example, I am the one who is thinking up other possibilities, not just settling on the most obvious possibility.

On the signature thing, regardless of how I form judgements, I don't think a signature has enough information to base much on so I don't really give them much weight. I think I get more demographic information from them e.g. how many children/how long TTC/age of children/different procedures used for assisted conception/different styles of parenting etc etc.

Also a signature is where people are trying to selectively show what they want to show of themselves, which may or may not be accurate or give a sense of what they want or need. For example I have come across people online (not necessarily here) that have had a bit of a rough trot and are shall we say a bit jaded about life and people in general, and they may have a quote in their signature that conveys something like 'I am tough, don't mess with me, or 'I don't care what you think about me'. That is what they are trying to convey, and people respond to that, but often the opposite is true and they are the ones who really actually need some care and understanding and cyber hugs. But that might just be me being all empathetic again :lol:

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WOW! That story literally gave me goosebumps. It really puts in perspective just how easy it is to judge without knowing the actual facts. Thanks for sharing, very interesting and is certainly making my mind tick over :)

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I forgot to add that recently when I was at a BB meetup we were discussing that not everyone in BB puts their life-story in their signatures. There are lots of BB members, for example, who have had miscarriages etc and not added them to their details. So just because something isn't there doesn't mean that you can safely assume that they haven't had to deal with that situation. I thought that was really interesting when that was raised.

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I have also thought a lot about this when certain comments have been made to posts, BB is not our IRL place and there are things that we do not share. You have summed that up beautifully, well done!