Can You Judge A Book By Its Cover?

I have a friend that wants to set me up with her son. The last time we had lunch she mentioned the idea and said she would send a picture. She was even very complimentary to me by saying if you aren’t dating anyone you look great and you should be. Very nice. Sometimes a single gal just needs to hear it. Finally, the day came and she sent the picture. However, along with the picture was a note that said if he’s not your type I would not even mention the idea of going out to him. Immediately I was uncomfortable. Blind dates and set ups are hard enough. Then you add the fact that you are friends with someone and if that doesn’t work out will things be awkward between you and your friend. Yet, in this case it’s my friend’s son. What do you say? What do you do? Can you really truly have the full essence of a person by a picture? Does that show what they are really like? You don’t hear a voice or see a hand motion. You don’t know if they are kind or funny. The only thing you have is a picture that you try to compare with the picture you have conjured up in your mind of what the perfect person for you would look like. Isn’t that how we rank potential mates? The other thing is we compare their looks to our last relationship or that one great love.

As I writer I love to wander around the bookstore and check out book covers. Having examined hundreds maybe even thousands of books I have always believed that you could judge a book by its cover. Anything that has a girly cover draws my eye and normally it’s chic lit. Yet, is the same philosophy true when it comes to people? Does the way we look or dress really reflect our personality or represent who we are as a person? How many people have we decided not to date because we didn’t think they were attractive? What about all the people who we meet and aren’t instantly attracted to someone physically, yet their personality is irresistible? Which brings me to another question, how do you really define chemistry? There can be different types of chemistry on different levels. You can have instant physical and emotion chemistry or just one of them. Which one is more important? Maybe the only reason we should turn someone down is because there is no physical or emotional chemistry. Yet, people can grow on you. I ended up dating a guy that I couldn’t stand his personality at first nor did I find him that attractive, but the more we talked the more we got to know each other, the more I liked him. Maybe I was too quick to judge.


In our culture where beauty and perfection reign supreme I can’t help but wonder can you really judge a book by its cover?