First And Last Impressions

First And Last Impressions


I am not a big fan of first impressions.

I mean, some people say, "It was love at first sight," or "From our very first conversation, I knew we would be friends forever."

Others say, "Well, I knew that guy was a bastard from the very beginning" or "Oh, you could tell she was a real bitch from the get-go."

I'm not sure how people are able to make such snap decisions. Is there really a "love at first sight?" Can you really tell that someone is an ass before you actually know he or she really is an ass?

Maybe, first impressions are simply done in hindsight. Maybe first impressions are not really "first" impressions at all, but simply an opinion of someone which took some time to form, but which people say they knew or "felt" right away.

Anyway, first impressions? Not my style, really.

Whenever I meet someone, I like to reserve judgement, if there must be a judgement at all, until I have a sense of who the person really is. I want to say I give everyone the "benefit of the doubt," but I don't much like that phrase. I don't really "doubt" or "not doubt" at all. I sort of don't do anything. I'm a waiter. No, I don't take orders in a restaurant. I wait. I'm a wait-and-see kind of guy. I'm never consciously saying, "Wait and see," but I do know I wait and see.

People rarely surprise me any more. Some people have very intricate disguises and fool most of the people they meet. Others are completely honest, almost to a fault.

In the bistro of life, relationships are like stopping at a diner for a meal. Some people offer you a wonderfully enticing appetizer and then bring on the most horrific entrée. Others go right to the dessert, and the relationship starts off as intoxicatingly sweet and wonderful. In either case, the key to whether or not you will want to revisit that dining experience comes much later. If you suffer rambling indigestion, diarrhoea, or, heaven forbid, food poisoning from the experience, then I suspect only a fool would go back to that restaurant for another course.

Still, some people do go back even to the worst roadside diners. I guess some people are just that hungry. "Desperate" might be a better word.

While not a fan of first impressions, I must admit that I almost always form an enduring last impression. How someone leaves my life never gets lost in my memory. Some have walked out the door of my world with complete dignity. Others have left with a little more hostility, and instead of just walking out with grace and class, they trash the whole house first, and slam the door behind them.

Those who keep their dignity and always welcome back. Those who launch a scud missile on their way out are likely to meet a similar scud missile should they ever have the audacity to try to come back.