You all deserve better.

Okay, maybe not EVERYONE deserves better. Some people are just terrible people who struggle in relationships because they act like a terrible person. Many others are good people who just, for whatever sad, awful reasons, get treated poorly and wind up feeling like they cant catch a break.

But the only way to know that is to get to know them first. Everyone deserves at least the benefit of the doubt at first glance. If they look like a decent enough person superficially, then go ahead and proceed beneath the surface. Never assume. (Unless they’re wearing Nazi paraphernalia, then treat them like the Nazi scum they are.)

This always makes me think of the best terrible expression I hear constantly: “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” which is 100% wrong. (The better expression regarding books and covers is “A book is only as good as its cover,” which is more true but still inaccurate. I’ve seen a number of crappy novels with beautiful packaging, such as Fifty Shades of Grey, which has fantastic design to distract you from the mediocre writing inside. Hell, you could probably even have an ugly book cover on a fantastic novel, but it just doesn’t happen, because publishers tend to be pretty sharp when it comes to things like cover design and advertising. Yet, I digress.)

You absolutely can judge a book by its cover. In fact, that’s exactly what book covers are designed to do: make you want to read the book! No one wants to pick up an ugly book. No one is enticed to read a book with a typo on the cover or bad art or cheap design. By the same token, no one wants to read a book with a bland, expressionless cover. The book cover has to give you some idea of what is inside its pages. For example, let’s take a couple of American classics: The Old Man and the Sea and Moby-Dick.

Let’s say you’ve never read this (and maybe you haven’t, which is okay, but I highly suggest Hemingway’s works) and saw these at a bookstore. Right away, you’d know a good deal about them, right? Fishermen battling massive sea creatures. Maybe that doesn’t interest you, and you pass on them. That’s fine, because it’s at least a semi-informed decision. Maybe you don’t like books about the ocean or sailing, or you’re not a fan of man-versus-beast conflict. Perfectly acceptable.

But go deeper on the covers, and you can uncover some important details to help form your opinion. From the men in the boats to the kinds of tools being used to the animals being hunted, you can tell a considerable amount of what you can expect from these stories. Even the skies tell you a lot, as do the different design elements being used.

Those design elements, such as the borders, cover colors, typography, etc., have become increasingly important in contemporary literature as cover design has taken strides away from artistic to minimalist design. Often you see nothing more than the title, author, and some symbolic image from the book to represent it. It’s not a new trend, but it’s one that has proven it’s gonna stick around for a while. Regardless, these covers are engineered to pique your interest and make you want to learn more about it to the point that you really want to pick it up and read it. (I could go on and on about cover design, but it’s considerably far beyond the point I’m making.)

So, the point is this: Give everyone a chance until they prove you otherwise.

But if you’re going to take a girl out, for godsakes, be a gentleman and treat her like a lady. Bring her flowers. Open doors for her. Be considerate of her. Basically, treat her with respect. She is something of value and should be treated as such.

Until she starts saying racist shit, then you start figuring out how to end the night as quickly as possible, as soon as the screaming inside your own head dies down enough for you to think straight.

-The Retail Explorer