I was thinking back to a moment at a rock climbing gym a few years ago. Climbing gyms are some of my happiest social spaces—places where strangers feel like teammates, and where working on a problem together feels like instant friendship. One day I was climbing with a guy who had bandages and cuts all over his face. He looked like he’d been in a car wreck or a fight. And my first instinct—the default human instinct—was to ask about it. To comment. To get the story. But something stopped me. Not discomfort. Not avoidance. Just a different choice. In that moment, I decided to see him first. Not the injuries. Not the story behind them. Not the thing that every stranger probably asked him about. Just him—the person who showed up to climb that day. So instead of asking about the obvious, I ignored it. We talked like I would talk to anyone else. We worked on a route together, traded tips, laughed, and had a good session. His wounds weren’t relevant to the experience we were having. Later, it hit me how rare that probably was for him. ## The Invisible Tax People Pay That interaction made me realize how often people who look “outside the norm” pay a social tax they never asked for. If you have scars, injuries, a disability, a birthmark, or anything unusual, you don’t get to be a person first. You’re the thing people notice. The thing that triggers questions. The thing strangers comment on before they meet you. People aren’t being cruel. Most are just curious. But curiosity repeated a hundred times becomes a burden. Imagine hearing the same question all day. Imagine every interaction starting with the same script. Imagine constantly having to overcome someone’s first impression just to show who you are. It wears people down. It makes social interaction exhausting instead of uplifting. It makes them forget that they are more than whatever outsiders see. ## The Same Path, Different Faces And this doesn’t only apply to visible injuries. Attractive women experience a quieter, but similar pattern. So do very tall people. People with unusual hair, tattoos, muscles, wheelchairs, anything that stands out. When the world treats your appearance as the most interesting thing about you, you start to believe it. You start to fear losing it. You start to forget that what makes you you lives deeper than the surface. It’s strange how the least important part of us can become the part we think defines us. ## Choosing a Different Default This isn’t automatically a tragedy. It becomes one when we take the [[Default setting|default]] path. The default is reacting to what we see and ignoring what matters. The default is reducing people to first impressions. The default is forgetting there’s a full human being behind the surface. But the thing about defaults is that we can override them. Seeing the person first is a small decision. But for the person you’re talking to, it can be enormous. It says: I’m meeting you, not your circumstances. I’m interacting with your presence, not your appearance. You don’t have to pay that tax with me. Sometimes, that’s the kindest thing we can offer each other.