Projection is a faulty method used to gain understanding of how the other person may feel or behave in a certain situation.
I just flashbacked on what my not-too-bright philosophy teacher told me last friday. When she was talking about power, she mentioned that, after marriage, the female often starts displaying her power by making the husband behave in a certain way. My response was that ''It's the man's fault he decided to give up his balls and participate in such an imbecilic ritual as marriage.'' The talk escalated into me stating that, rather than performing an absolutely unneeded ritual (marriage), I die alone. Of course, the classmates did not like this idea, and especially, me saying that ''A woman that makes an ultimatum for her man to marry her or she will leave is worth less than a piece of shit to me.''
A classmate of mine asked, what would I do, if a woman would demand me to marry her in order to, for example, living with me. I said that I'd tell her to go fuck herself. Same applies to any woman ever giving me the line of ''No sex before marriage.'' Why? Simple. If you need a ritual that is essentially meaningless to me, costly, and pretty much unnecessary in order to have a relationship, you are faulty, faulty in the sense of not desiring to work for a relationship and being too insecure to believe that a relationship can be maintained without marriage. Sure, it takes a lot more trust and effort, since you don't start taking many things for granted as you do in a marriage, but, if you cannot handle it anyway, then the marriage wouldn't be worth it.
The whole deal, however, ended with my classmates (who are, I presume, obsessed with the thought of starting a family in the traditional sense of the word, as well as desiring to procreate and have a marriage) shunning me and the teacher telling me that she knows a man that was saying something similar to what I was - her husband.
And this is where we get to the main point, she was implying that, because she knew someone who had a similar stance to mine and changed it, the same thing will happen to me.
Same applies to what my mother said about me being an atheist. That I will experience something that will make me believe in a christian god, just like she did.
And this is a fault of most people. We assume things. We assume that, just because a certain person acted a certain way in a certain situation, everyone else with a seemingly similar setting and position regarding a certain idea will act the same way. False.
Why? Simple, people are not all the same. Since everyone is an individual and is formed by a different set of external factors (not to mention the internal ones that arise from the external), no two people are exactly the same, unless they have an identical starting point (biological and genetic makeup, as well as situation), and live an identical life, which is not possible, thus, assuming that everyone will act the same way you or someone you knew acted in a certain situation is just plain short-sighted and, at times, even arrogant.
Sure, some situations imply a limited choice of behaviours, for example, it is unlikely that a person that has a gun put to its head and is told that it will be killed, will try to jump up to the moon, it does not mean that such a thing will never happen.
So, what I want to say is that, people should make less assumptions and project own (or people known) personalities to people that seem to have similar personalities to a known person, because, if you or someone you know acted like that, does not mean that this person will do the same.
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