You are what you watch

A couple days ago, I was walking down the street I overheard two girls talking behind me. I couldn’t help but eavesdrop, since we were walking in the same direction at the same pace.

One of the girls had just started a new relationship, and the other girl was asking about the guy, and the first question out of her mouth was “What television shows does he watch?”

Now, that freaked me out a bit. Like, are entertainment preferences really the yardstick that people use to measure someone’s character? Maybe I was just feeling sensitive after a meditation session, but I was struck by how pathetically shallow our society has become.

But they weren’t done yet. The other girl listed off his favorite shows and said that she didn’t like them. The only one I recognized was “South Park”, which—surprise!—doesn’t exactly qualify as “Television for Women”.

The inquirer then talked about how she and her beau had broken up because he liked to watch Sports Center, but she liked Gossip Girl. She was unambiguous that it was the primary reason they had gone separate ways. Wow.

The girls went on to talk about how important it was to fill the 7-10pm block of time each night with programs they wanted to see. At that point, I decided to vector off in a separate direction to avoid further deterioration of my world-view. Is this really how people live? People who think they’re deep, thoughtful individuals?

That hit me in a couple ways. First, it made me wonder what they would think of me: someone who hasn’t had a tv in 14 years, and hasn’t missed it a bit. If television is such an important part of determining how compatible two people are, I have very little hope of being some attractive lady’s “dream guy”.

But neither do I have much clue about how one might find a woman who is “deep” or “self-aware” by my definition of the word. In fact, the whole thing just makes me despair for the state of these clever apes run amok.

At the risk of self-aggrandizement, it reminds me of how the Buddha must have felt. According to the legend, after his enlightenment, people pleaded with him to impart his wisdom to them. But he demurred for several days, thinking that people would be unable to understand what he had learned. Sometimes I feel that way… Discouraged that so many people live their lives in complete unconsciousness, slaves to their habits and unexamined patterns of thought, yet at a loss for what to do about it.

The Buddha was finally convinced to teach by Brahma, the king of the gods, who said that there were people “with little dust in their eyes” who were capable of hearing his message. Like him, I have to admit that I’ve met some people who are exceptionally self-aware. They’re very few, but those people really do make all the difference in the world, and I’m very grateful for their presence in my life.

But they’re not people who base their mating habits on compatible Nielsen ratings.