Thursday, March 5, 2015

The Dress

Jerry and I married when we were mere children and so we've grown up together. Over the years, we've come to see pretty much everything eye-to-eye.

Or not.

I first saw THE DRESS on my FACEBOOK feed on Friday afternoon. The caption read: What Color is this Dress? The first comment was from a famous Hollywood actress. She said, “It's white with gold trim, you idiots!”

The dress I was looking at was far from white but this actress is a gifted comedy writer so I thought she was joking. 

The DRESS kept popping up everywhere all day long. Later I heard it even made the evening news. Same picture - a vivid blue dress with black trim that some people were saying was white. Is this an “Emperor's New Clothes” thing? I mean, come on! How can anyone mistake white for blue?

Our youngest daughter sent us a text. “I have seen this dress 300 times today and it's WHITE and GOLD!”  What?

It was then I began to believe that two entirely different pictures were being circulated, same dress - one blue and one white. That's easier than thinking something's wrong with your own child's eyesight.  I asked her to text me the picture she was looking at.  She did.

When Jer got home from work, he said, “What was Kate talking about?” After I told him, he said he hadn't seen THE DRESS and so Kate shared the picture with the entire family.

Jer looked at the photo. “It's white and gold,” he said. I thought he was kidding which annoyed him and he began trying to convince me that the dress was not blue. “The dress is white, Chris. White like the woodwork. White like our sheets. White like a blank sheet of paper.” 

By now I GET that he sees THE (blue) DRESS as white. Both our daughters agree. But to me (and my son and daughter-in-law) it's blue - and not a sweet, pastel, baby blue either. It's vibrant, vivid, bright blue.  My husband was unable to persuade me that THE (blue) DRESS that I was seeing with my own eyes was white, but I admire him for trying.

The upside of THE (blue) DRESS question was that we'd spent so much time discussing it that it was way past our normal suppertime. We were hungry so we decided to eat out. (Yay.)

We were at the restaurant waiting to be seated when we realized the young couple behind us was arguing about the color of THE (blue) DRESS.
Best to find out early in your relationship that there are some things you are never gonna agree on.

And that's okay.

                             
                                                         * * *


If you are among the roughly 27 people in America (or the U.K.) who didn't see the photo of THE (blue) DRESS, here it is. 


(Photo:  Swiked/Tumblr)

Interestingly, those who seem to see THE (blue) DRESS as white/gold are early birds and the blue/black group are night owls.  This is from research I, myself, conducted by scientifically polling five people.




www.StillSwimmingUpstream.com


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to skew your Data, but I see the dress as white and gold, and am clearly not a morning person!!!

Unknown said...

David says blue and black. I see white and gold. After squeezing my eyes shut and looking at it again it is blue and black. Strange....

Unknown said...

The dress is blue. However the perception of the white and gold comes from the lighting, the same perception trick that causes two identical colors to look like completely different shades relative to their surrounding colors.

With the light behind the dress, some people assume there is a shadow.

I stare at light setups all day, and so my brain immediately went to blue.

My guess would be a better poll would be to figure out who is more abstract in thought, and who is more clinical.