I have come to regard first impressions as rather deceitful companions, charming at a glance, yet seldom trustworthy upon closer acquaintance. All my first impressions of people come cloaked in certainty, as I draw conclusions before truth has had the decency to even introduce itself.
I remember once meeting someone I was certain I would never like. I felt there was an air of being too composed and deliberate about her. She measured her words before releasing them, as if conversations were supposed to be some calculated stage performance rather than a spontaneous exchange. I found it an irksome, rather pretentious, fake life, even. So, within moments, I had made my judgment and filed her away in my invisible cabinet. How confident I was in my fleeting perception.
Anyway, time ever patient, ever revealing, has a way of undoing such assumptions as days went by, we had small reluctant talks which ended up shifting my perspective. The composure I had mistaken for pretence revealed itself as carefulness. She was not eager to impress at all, but had been unwilling to be careless with words.
And just like that, my first so assured impression began to crumble. Then it occurred to me, rather uncomfortably, that first impressions are not truths. They are merely guesses dressed in conviction where we see a fraction and declare the whole.
There is, I think, a peculiar arrogance in believing we can understand a person within seconds of their presence. That’s like saying humans are simple creatures, easily deciphered, and their complexities laid bare at first glance but, people are not portraits. They are novels and no sensible reader would claim to know a story after a single page.
Still, we persist, in judging the quiet as aloof and the reserved as unfriendly. We literally assign meaning where there may be none, and certainty where there should be curiosity. Now the greatest tragedy of all is not that we are wrong but that we rarely give ourselves the chance to be corrected.
First impressions, I have learned, are not meant to be trusted but should rather be questioned. Because somewhere beneath that hurried judgment could lie a far better story waiting to be understood.
My response to the Freewriters daily prompt