Discussion - the importance of physical description/appearance

[Montero]

I've been following the "challenge" thread about physical description with interest and found it thought provoking, both for the range of approaches to physical description and on a more abstract level how people make assumptions based on appearance. Rather than cluttering up the challenge thread, I decided to post a new thread on the topic, find out what other people think, or to some extent how other people think .

1. When you meet someone new, what do you notice first?

2. When describing them, as in "I just met someone, can't remember their name, they have ......, do you know them?" what do you list?

3. Have you ever been surprised by how someone behaved, contrary to what you were expecting from their appearance? In particular how?

4. And taking the reverse, how often do you find that the wrapper is a good guide?

Answers for me
1. Depends to some extent on distance, as in if called over to meet someone I would notice more about the general outline of the person than if introduced close up. In general though eyes, then voice, then smile and unless very startling, hair colour is usually a bit vague. Clothes - again only if startling or well away from "average". I'm not a person who can tell the difference between Moss Bros and Armani.

2. Eyes - and I've been teased on that one. The reaction is as though I fancy the person I am describing because I've noticed eye colour, but the person I'm asking doesn't have a clue about most people's eye colour. Then voice only if distinctive - regional accent, man with high voice, woman with low voice, loud, very soft. Probably then height, approximate age, neat/scruffy - BUT politeness/correctness cuts in on so many descriptive factors that it is a lot easier to relate some part of the conversation I've just had with the stranger. Such as "talked about his sports car a lot, some sort of Porsche".

3. Used to be a lot more than now, but I found I have a set of mental templates that reality contradicts. A particular example would be "biker look" long hair, tattoos, leather=scary. In my experience many are friendly and helpful, far more so than well dressed folks in suits in a hurry to be somewhere.

4. Sharpness - it seems to me, and might all be in my perception, that more sharp featured people are sharp tongued. (Not saying all, just more ) Wonder how much of that, if true, comes from "sharp" expressions shaping the resting position and other expressions on sharp tongued people's faces.

Oh, and all of this brought "Julius Caesar" to mind -
"Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."

That assumption is still alive and kicking, though I think in the corporate world the preference is the other way around!