During my twenty years (or so) of dating, I had many well-meaning people in my life say ‘be careful’ in response to sharing my latest love interest. It was intended as some form of positive advice, I’m sure. But they were saying something that was basically unintelligible to me. No matter how hard I tried, I was constitutionally unable to fathom this advice.

‘Be careful?’ I would say to myself incredulously. ‘How do I be careful? I’m not exactly going to meet a random stranger down a dark alleyway at night, am I? So what do they mean? Be Careful. Hmph!’

You are capable of perceiving so much, in fact, that you would become overwhelmed were you inclined to give all of it your conscious attention. If you took all of the external stimuli in, you would go crazy but here’s where things get interesting. Your past experiences and beliefs are shaping what details you attend to. If you believe that people always reject you, for example, you will be looking for signs of rejection. You will notice behaviours that indicate rejection or you will be drawn to people whom you sense will reject you. You will notice signs of rejection more readily than signs of acceptance …