First Impressions

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So - first impressions can be a tough frame to get yourself out of, eh? Are yours usually right? Are you open to changing your mind? What do you do when you have misjudged someone? Tell them? Just carry on?

Catherine

-- Catherine (catherine@cmjcom.com), November 11, 1999

Answers

My first impressions are generally not-quite-accurate. I notice certian things about people and completely miss others. but if I meet someone i'm going to be powerfully attracted to, the seeds of that lust are always sown in the first five minutes of conversation.

I generally give people I meet three chances to change my mind about my first impression of them. If I come away from meeting someone with an poor impression, I always try to give them several chances to correct that. I mean, when i meet them, they could have had a really bad day, or they could be uncomfortable with the social situation, or they could have had blisters on their feet, or they could have simply been in a bad mood. Of course, this comes from me knowing that i generally don't make a very good first impression, myself. I'm shy, I freely admit this, and there are social situations in which I come off as uninteresting, or, worse, a complete idiot. I'm a difficult person to get to know, a lot of the time, and because of this i give other people a lot of slack.

If i've misjudged someone, I generally won't tell them anything about it. I'll just adjust my perceptions and carry on.

-- Kris (idat@madstop.org), November 11, 1999.


i try to always give people the benefit of the doubt. you could tell me something horrible about a person before i meet them, but chances are i won't hold that against them until i have proof for myself. and even then, i'll usually not have a problem with that person until they do something specifically towards me. after that, it's usually hard for me to "forgive and forget".

there are some people who give me "bad vibes" upon first meetings, and those too are hard to overcome. but in the past i've given second chances, and more often than not those people have weasled their way into my life and vice versa. i usually at some point DO tell someone if i've misjudged them... almost in all the situations we've been able to laugh about it... i become a little cautious again if they get too defensive and get angry towards me about it. hey, we're just human!

-- El (eparkins@mail.coin.missouri.edu), November 11, 1999.


It is an art to grasp the jist of someone at first glance. The impressions given can be wildly different from minute to minute. I am sensing their aura, not too dissimilar to a cat sniffing first and then bubbing. I give as much as possible, a wide berth for us all to rotate in before I jump. I berate myself on a misjudgement...I try not to let folks become aware of it....it is my judgement after all.

-- erica (ericam@erksnerks.com), November 11, 1999.

I'm pretty generally right about first impressions, and if someone acts contrary to those, I look to see if there is any reason why they are veering from type.

--Al of Nova Notes.



-- Al Schroeder (al.schroeder@nashville.com), November 11, 1999.


I'm afraid I might place a little too much emphasis on looks, when meeting someone for the first time. Which is a terrible bias! When I first met my fiancee Mark, I thought he was so NORMAL looking that there was no way he and I would work out (I've got piercings and tattoos & stuff).

But after talking to him for a while, I realized his INTERNAL unconventionality, and that shattered my impression of normality for good.

I'm slowly learning not to take people at "face value" all the ti

-- Molly Zero (mollyzero@usa.net), November 11, 1999.



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