[J253]

Somewhat related, in high school I took a photography class and on the first dark room day, we got paired randomly with someone else in the class to practice taking film out of the canister and a few other dark room things. The person I got paired with and I were from very different circles and would never have exchanged words if it wasn’t for this exercise.

We were only in that room for 15-20 minutes, but I had some of the deepest most genuine conversation I’ve ever had in that sort period of time. After we left the room, we never spoke again. Something about the safety of blindness made us feel comfortable with each other.

If I had instead struck up an AIM chat or a phone call with this person, I guarantee the conversation topics would have been very different. The physical presence, our actual voices, the absence of light…something about that combination made the experience quite profound for my young self.

[newby]

That reminds me of the "deviance in the dark" psychology experiment - they were describing similar effects, sometimes even more personal, like strangers hugging, touching or even kissing if I remember correctly. I learned about this from this comic: https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/deviance-in-the-dark

[xyzzy21]

Honestly I think there's an aspect of "dark" to the internet now - basically how Tinder works.

[J253]

Never heard of that experiment. Just read up on it, though. Fascinating! Thanks for sharing.