As the great William Shakespeare never once said:
“To pod, or not to pod? That is the question.”
Yet it’s something you really need to consider. Every day there seems to be an ever increasing number of girls wandering around with a pair of headphones in their ears wired directly to their mobile phones or mp3 players, all delivering a range of sounds from the sweet melodies of Tchaikovsky to the frantic pace of Pendulum. There’s also audio books, hypnosis and personal development programs by the boatload to keep you entertained on your commute to work or during that short walk to the shops. In fact, there’s so much good stuff out there you could spend the rest of your life plugged into your headphones and still miss something wonderful that could suit you perfectly. But what are you really missing out on by staying plugged in?
Here’s something that you may not have noticed until now. As soon as you plug yourself in, you dull down all of your other senses because the auditory part of your brain becomes more dominant. Think about it, have you ever had somebody stand two feet away from you waving their hands to get your attention whilst you stand in an oblivious trance with Riana or J-Lo bouncing around inside your ears?
We all do it, and I love having music to help me through the day as much as anyone, but the whole time you have your focus on the auditory part of your brain you’re missing out on the subtle clues around you that might lead to an interesting conversation with a tall handsome stranger… Not only that, but if you observe those around you wearing headphones, you’ll notice that they all have a slightly vacant expression on their faces.
This is because the kinesthetic part of the brain that controls muscle movement is playing second fiddle to the auditory part.* Just as the “fight or flight” response shuts down digestion and daydreaming, over stimulation of the auditory circuit reduces the attention usually reserved for vision or muscles. Now whilst this auditory distraction may be a good thing if you’re on the treadmill and end up running for twice your usual distance because you were listening to some particularly bangin’ tracks (and notice how when you really zoned out your vision became less focused as well), it doesn’t really help you in the quest for finding the man of your dreams (unless you’re exceptionally obese, but I know you aren’t).
So not only are you missing out on the clues that available men are giving off, you also look like a zombie whilst you do it! It’s lose-lose however you view it and it isn’t helping you to be more attractive. To add a whopper-triple-whammy to it, guys will almost never approach a girl who’s wearing earphones because it’s not only a signal to us that you don’t want to be disturbed, but it’s also an easy cop-out that most men cling onto to avoid the fear of rejection and justify why they didn’t approach you.
I know this sounds ridiculous but 99.999% of guys are afraid of approaching you and starting a conversation. Seriously! All you are doing by putting in headphones is making sure that the one solid decent guy that might have taken a chance on finding out who you really are is going to walk right by you with nothing but a fleeting burst of eye contact and a missed opportunity that may have changed the rest of your life.
Why would you risk that for the sake of a song?
Do yourself a favour and keep your eyes and ears open to the possibility of a new interaction. Who knows, the next person you sit next to on the bus or in the park may end up being the love of your life, but he might never find out if you're too focused on your own internal world.
To make sure the next hot guy to walk past you stops for a stimulating conversation, head to http://www.mr-right.me/your_special_day.html
*unless you are at a live event where the vibration of the music stimulates the auditory and kinesthetic circuit in equal measures, that’s why you feel compelled to sing and dance.
