Blind Spots

Is it simply impossible for some people to really fully understand certain others? We all see events, people, and ideas, through our own worldviews...shaped by our own experiences and the people we have met in the past (and our own encounters with previous people were shaped by the ideas we had at the time...) and given this...is it going to be inevitable that we meet people who we are incapable of fully seeing as themselves, or who are incapable of accepting us as we are?

Perhaps the phrasing above is rather convoluted, but I don't know how else to ask it.

I found myself thinking about this while reflecting on a conversation I had with a health care provider, which is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. This guy was listing off things that cause me uncertainty, and he decided to throw my sexual orientation into the list. When I expressed my confusion at why he included it, he pretty much said "I once had a bisexual friend who chose to live the gay lifestyle since he thought it would be easier to remain faithful that way." I wanted to explain No, that's not how every bisexual works, we don't HAVE to choose between a "gay lifestyle" or "straight lifestyle" as he seemed to be suggesting I need to. But I was too shocked at realizing that he still doesn't get it, despite I don't know how many discussions we've had.

Why is my bisexuality so difficult for him to understand? Just at a wild guess, largely because he views all bisexuals with that one friend of his in mind...and he probably spoke with that one friend with preconceived ideas about what it means to be bi.

This leads me to ask, where are my blind spots? Where am I unable to see people as they really are because I'm too busy looking through Sarita's-World tinted glasses? How do I find these blind spots, and how do I learn to see once I've found them?

I know, this post is full of questions with no answers. Sometimes that's how the world goes I suppose.

butterfly wing

Looks like an eye at first, right? I also had to do a double take before realizing that I wasn't seeing it correctly, so it seemed like a good photo to accompany this post.