So this is an interesting conundrum. Ethically speaking, of course.

Should you pretend to care?

Let’s say that you go out on a date with someone and they start talking about something you have never heard of or don’t find interesting. What should you do?

Or when a kid comes to you with a leaf in his/her hand. For the child the leaf might be the most interesting thing in the world…but for you? Probably not! So what to do?

Pretend to care? But wouldn’t that be fake?

Or should you just tell them that you don’t care?

In ‘Social Intelligence’ Daniel Goleman talks about the low and high road of communication.

High road of communication refers to logical exchanges. This usually involves the pre-frontal cortex.

The low road of communication refers to emotional exchanges which involves the amygdala. This communication happens through facial expressions, body language, etc.

When two people are ‘in sync’ they usually match each others emotional and energy frequencies and they also mirror each other’s body language. (But it only works when it happens subtly, subconsciously, it’s very difficult to deliberately do this!)

So coming back to the questions above…should you care?

Well…it depends. Do you care about the person in front of you?

You might never actually care about the thing the person in front of you care about as much as them…but that emotional connection you can forge when trying to? That’s invaluable.

When people are in sync with each other they feel what Goleman refers to as a ‘positive glow’.

It’s a feeling that is very valuable to human beings. But it can’t be faked…you can only feel the glow when it’s genuine.

So should you pretend to care? If you care about the person in front of you then yes! Because when you try to care your chances of connecting increase! Otherwise you risk emotionally shutting off the person in front of you!

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