OddThinking

I am feeling a little dirty today, after a party last night.

I was chatting to a woman who had just had her palm read by another party-goer, a wiccan. I’ve experimented with several ways to react to such foolishness. This time I decided, perhaps unwisely, to see if I could reproduce the result.

I didn’t think it through very far, possibly because of the free-flowing home-made cider, but I guess I was thinking that if she saw the same magic trick performed poorly by someone who has not practiced it, she would see through it, and perhaps apply the same thoughts to the previous guy’s attempts.

I dragged her into the light, to show I was taking it seriously, and pointed to her palm.

“See this line here?” I said.

“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly, “My fate line.” Oh shit. I was about to call it something else. Do I have to read up on other people’s specious bullshit before I can spin my own?

“Yeah, that’s what the other style of palm-reading calls. I use a different style. Now see these two small lines coming off of it, near the edge of your palm? Most of my reading comes from the edges of the palm, not the centre.

“So, these lines talk about a major change in your life in your past. Often it is puberty, but it could be a big lifestyle change. They are close together, showing you had great difficulty adapting, but you came through in the end.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

At the party, she had been listening to the group conversation more than joining in, only speaking up when there were only two or three people. Time to draw on the work of Meyers-Briggs for vague statements that are somewhat true about everyone. “I can see here that – while you know a lot of people – you prefer to surround yourself with a small group of very tight friends than you can be more open with. Does this sound right to you?”

“Yeah,”

“Now this line represents integrity. For you, the truth is very important. You dislike dishonesty.”

“That’s so true!” she interjected, while I started kicking myself for my own stupidity. How did I let myself get in this awkward situation again? Not only was I failing to fail at cold reading (I continue to underestimate how much people lap up this crap,) but I had just cut-off any hope of an escape route. How could I come clean now, when I had just had her commit herself to a strong dislike of dishonesty?

Feeling dirty and not wanting to dig further, I kind of let the reading peter out with a whimper, and we returned to our position by the fire, with her saying “Wow, all those statements were right!” and me dismissing it with “Yeah, but I am full of shit. Those statements were kind of vague.” “But they were spot on.”

Cold-reading is a fun sort of psychology-in-the-field puzzle, but I always feel bad afterwards.

This morning, I had an idea. What if I was to say “Hmmm… So, from what I have learnt about you, I want to recommend something for you to read. It is from expert on the human psyche. I think you will find it thought-provoking and helpful for someone like you. Tomorrow, go and look up the Forer Effect. Let me write it down for you. You’ll find a summary in Wikipedia.”?

Would that be an effective way of making myself feel better about lying to someone’s face? Would it make it less embarassing for them when they find out the truth, or worse? Would they learn a lesson in skepticism, or just think I am a jerk? Or both.

Or maybe I just should get over my apparent need for personal integrity. That would make everything in life so much easier to deal with.

Or I just need to learn to turn away and start talking to someone more interesting.