Thanks for the feedback

The first series of Big Brother started in Israel a few weeks ago. For those who pretend not to know what this ultimate in reality viewing is, the show focuses on about 16 people who move into a house together for 100 days and forego all rights to any privacy whatsoever. There are cameras in every part of the house other than the toilet, and participants are mandated to wear microphones at all times. Viewers can watch what's happening in the house 24 hours a day on TV, or even better via the Internet, where one can choose which camera (and hence, which participants) to focus on.

The show feeds the voyeur in each and every one of us. While I generally deny that I watch it to anyone who asks directly, I am convinced that most people check it out - even occasionally - just to see 'what's happening' in the house. I am fascinated by the psychology of the experience – who would WANT the whole country to see their every move and hear all their conversations? Why would someone volunteer to be jailed and monitored for three months of their lives? And, most importantly, will anything ever actually happen or will they just continue to sit around the pool, talking nonsense for the next 6 weeks?

What frustrates me the most with the show is the lack of interaction with the outside world, or rather, OUR lack of interaction with THEM. I think it would become a lot more interesting if viewers had the ability to communicate with the participants – ask questions, make suggestions, tell them what other participants are saying about them, or simply 'chat' with the people that have been so closely monitored for weeks on end.

Cyber-dating bears some resemblance to Big Brother. By putting oneself on the Internet, one becomes exposed to all sorts of strangers, but also to friends and colleagues. When I was dating via Internet sites, I often came across profiles with pictures of friends, acquaintances and colleagues. But more than that, when I went out in the city, the experience always came with a strong sense of déjà vu, where the people in my surroundings all looked familiar (mostly because I'd browsed their profiles in cyberspace).

In my dating heyday, I often thought about the issue of feedback. I even considered having friends sit at a table next to me when I went on a first date just to let me know what I did right and what I did wrong. That is, until I mentioned this to one of my blind dates and he took the opportunity to give me open, honest feedback. He was a friend of a friend, was visiting Israel for a week and was in the process of deciding whether to move to Israel or stay in South Africa. He called me at work one day and asked if I could meet for lunch, as his schedule was very full but he'd been told it would be a good idea to meet me. I agreed, even though I was not really dressed for a date and was under pressure at the office.

The actual date was painless. He spent most of it talking about his ex-girlfriend (a common experience for me, I'm afraid). I don't think he asked me anything about myself at all, meaning I had to make no effort to communicate with him, other than nodding my head on occasion and pretending to be interested in why he no longer wanted to date the girl he so obviously still wanted to date. At some point, he started talking about the experience of dating, and I mentioned that I'd often thought it would be a good idea to film the first date in order to analyze it afterwards. He took that as a cue to provide feedback, and told me he'd be happy to let me know exactly what he thought of our date, just like a friend would have done if they'd been silently observing from the side.

At the time, I was in a process of working on myself. I was working out regularly, had lost a significant amount of weight, was feeling good and felt like I radiated that. So I felt quite comfortable inviting his honest feedback. Until he started delivering it. To start with, he said I got 10 out of 10 for personality, nothing he could find fault with there. And then he went on to dissect my physical features like I was a cadaver on a slab. Apparently, I needed to lose some weight, tone up, grow my hair longer, wear more makeup, since I am short I should buy some high heels, and perhaps a personal designer could help me learn to dress better for my body.

As he shared his honest feedback with me, I felt my personal temperature gauge rise from within, and when the heat arrived in my eyes he started to back off and simmer down. His last sentence in the 'what's wrong with me' diatribe literally trailed off into silence, as he realized that he may have gone too far when he suggested I whiten my teeth. The bottom line - If I could just work a little harder on my physical appearance, he'd probably be willing to take me out again.

I thanked him for the feedback.

And I explained in a controlled, soft, probably menacing voice, that he may want to learn to appreciate people not as 'snapshots' but rather as 'movie footage', not as an object in a single point in time but as one point in a series of events. The way any given person looks, at any given time, is a factor of so many things that one look simply cannot be enough to make a judgment call. But that said, I told him I was grateful he'd shared his opinion. And I followed on to tell him that I, too, had feedback.

I told him he looked fine. His weight was not a problem, he was firm enough, his hair was the right length, his teeth where white and he was just the right height. Physically close to perfect. If he could have just done something about his rotten personality, I probably would have been willing to let him take me out again.

I never heard from him again.