When you first meet someone, what is truely a good indicator of what a person is like? We put up these masks in front of our faces to show off our best selves and make a good impression, but in the end the person we are meeting ends up just being disappointed that you aren't what you said you were. Or vice versa. I have moved a LOT in my life, and feel like I am constantly having to make new friends. I quite often will meet someone and think "Wow, we have so much in common! I can't wait to hang out with her/him." Later, I end up realizing that although we have so much in common, it is usually superficial things and we don't really see eye to eye on most things. In fact, that person just plain bugs me!
Other times I have met people and thought I couldn't stand them. Years later I finally take the time to get to know them and realize that yes, we are quite different, but we have a great time together and really get along.
I often wonder what kind of impression people get of me. Not just the first impression, but later. Once they know me. How many people still like me, think I'm funny, smart, talented, free-spirited, or just plain fun? How many people figure out I'm quite boring, negative, selfish, and kind of rude?
And then there is the whole look thing. I was just telling my mom this (kinda) funny story: When I first started college (Fall of '95), I moved into my dorm/apartment with 4 other girls. We had one space open. A few days later, another girl moved from a different apartment into ours. When she first came over to meet us, I was sitting in the living room, doing my homework (probably music theory. Spent most of my time on that stuff). At the time I had long, straight hair, dyed a dark auburn color and parted in the middle. I wore faded, worn jeans, large t-shirts under an even larger flannel shirt, and old, dirty and torn canvas tennis shoes (when I was wearing shoes). I guess I was sitting in the corner of the room and there wasn't much light on me, because my roommate later told me I was so scary to her. She thought I was total goth.
Goth?? I don't know where she got that from. I guess if I had to call my look anything, it was more grunge than anything else (just needed dirty hair, but that is the one thing I can't stand more than anything else. I need clean hair to be happy). So, anyways... she thought I was goth. Funny.
That same year, my roommates once said to me, "You are such a music major!"
Uuuuuhhhhh, your point being? I am a music major! Is that good or bad?
I don't think I really fit in all that well. It was a small, LDS college, and I guess as a "free thinking artist" of sorts, I just wasn't the norm. When I wore dresses or skirts, they were short skirts. I had never dated an LDS guy before going to school there (although, in my defense, who was I supposed to go out with?? My brother?? Ew! There were no other LDS guys my age). I didn't have any friends going on missions (again, no LDS guys my age). I hadn't even been to Girl's Camp in about 5 years (thanks mostly to summer band practice or color guard camp or having to travel across the country to see my dad). Oh yeah, and my parents were divorced. Very much so.
I had a roommate that was the wealthy, preppy, New Hampshire stereotype. Another roommate was the perfect Mormon girl from Provo, whose dad taught at BYU and was a stake president or something. The one roommate that I got along best with that year was the California blonde who was one of 13 non-LDS students in the entire school!
A year later I had a roommate from Sandy, Utah who was convinced I was Alanis Morrisette. Huh? Just because I have long hair and like to put it in braids and look more alternative than any Utah Mormon... Jeez.
Anyrate, I got along great with these roommates later. Once they figured out I wasn't scary and that being a music major and being a good Mormon weren't opposites, that is.
I wish I knew what people thought of me now, though. I've gone through a lot of changes since then (lost the southern accent and everything). Sometimes I wish I could read minds.
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Southern accent? See, there is something I didn't know about you! How can an accent come across in writing, unless you purposely put it in there (and that would get annoying very fast)? Interesting.
Its funny that you mentioned being a music major as being truly odd. Proud Mum and I had discussed that very thing awhile back. That everywhere we went we felt odd, even at ricks, the only time we felt like we were around others like us was when we were in the Snow Building. My first year at Ricks was the same way with my roommates, they all thought I was a lazy skater chick. My second year was much better, they saw me as the busy, music major fun loving person that I was. I also wonder what people think of me when I meet them now. Meeting new people in the ward isn't like meeting new roommates, you don't live with them so you don't have tose nights where you just start talking about anything random because you're so tired.
Angel, there is nothing at all wrong with a Southern accent. In fact, I get it back quite quickly whenever I talk to someone else from the south. Or watch a movie that takes place in the south. Or tell a story from high school.
Anyways... I'm just saying that was one of the changes I've made. You know I find your accent endearing!
I'm with you, ABQ. I only felt truely at home in the Snow. However, even there I was an oddball. I had fellow music majors tell me how I reminded them of a "granola" from Oregon, or punk, or grunge from Seattle. I really don't know where I fit in... then or now.
btw, Angel, what exactly *did* you think of me??? :)
it's crazy how first impressions are often our measurement of people and theirs of us, and often times they are so wrong.
now you've got me thinking. i wonder how many people i've dismissed due to a negative first impression... i know of some because we've happened on to each other again in later life, but i bet their are others.
isn't if funny- we where our masks to protect us, and generally, they only thing the protect us from is truly being known. we are a weird bunch, we humans.
man, i just reread that and i'd say the impression i left is that i'm near illiterate, or at the very least, the worlds worst speller. um, the latter might be true. [/blush]
When Nathan and I were dating, we and a couple friends all died our hair black and dressed up black with face paint and the whole Goth bit for Friday the 13th. We went back to Nathan’s parent’s house to get something and talked to Nathan's dad for a little bit. Nathan's Dad says that that was the first time he met me! (I thought I’d already met him before, but maybe that’s the first time he remembered meeting me!)
I'd make a REALLY good Goth. Man, I creep myself out when I look like that :) (For that evening we went to a fancy restaurant just for the looks that we'd get and they stuck us way in the back in our own private booth! It was soooo funny! And for no particular reason I carried an ax with me :) it was hysterical!)
Different time--There was someone who told one of my other friends that they thought that I was stuck up because they had been talking and I didn't say anything, and she saw that as me being 'above' them. I thought that was weird because in a conversation I'm generally the quiet one (or the sarcastic one that throws in quips here and there but doesn't really add anything to the conversation). Whenever I’m in a conversation and I’ve been quiet for too long the thought of “Say something! They’re going to think your stuck up!” always goes through my mind.
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