First Impressions

Back when I was a fresh face 16 year old, before a mixture of Radiohead records, alcohol and the death of my beloved childhood dog Stanley turned me into the bitter fuck I am today, I was so keen to make new friends I literally thought everyone I met was a genius who was worthy of my time. I remember going on my first holiday with a big group of friends down to Polzeath. For those of you not familiar with his charming little Cornwall village it is the place where a huge number of private school kids get away to to generally rebel, mostly by throwing up after drinking too much Smirnoff Ice and shagging people it later turns out are their cousins. But I digress.

At this time most of my friends didn't judge people on their first impressions. We really were a tremendously friendly bunch to everyone we met, even if a lot of the people we met down their would terminate the conversation as soon as we revealed we didn't go to private school. The first impression we gave to these future professional trust fund spenders was that we were probably not good enough to hang around with them. The ones that didn't think like that ended up loving us, and we had some increasingly out of control nights out (it still amazes me we were allowed to go away unsupervised at 16)

One of my friends wasn't as friendly. After our first night out in which we'd befriended a bare-footed stranger, who within about 20 minutes of drinking games decided to go bare-everything. Said character turned up at our place in the morning to borrow our shower. 'Who the fuck is that twat?' my friend eloquently asked once the bare-footed man was indisposed. 'Mate you'll love him!' I replied. 'Seems like a prize bell-end to me!' The other day my friend turned round to me and said 'What ever happened to [bare-footed man] that guy was a fucking legend!' What would've happened if my friend had followed through with his first impressions? He would not have had the memories and good times, and that little holiday wouldn't have been anywhere near as good for him.

Fast forward 7 years and I'm sad to say I've become him. I can't bloody help it! I meet someone new and it takes me a long time to give them a chance, usually I'll just ignore them all together. I honestly don't mean to do it, but I've noticed it coming the other way as well. Why is this?

I'm not talking about first impressions on looks or appearance. I'm sure Hitler didn't judge Jews on their personality, I'm sure the social elite don't judge the working class by their views on the hunt and I'm sure not every good looking girl I see just happened to be much more friendly and learned then the not so good looking ones. I'm talking about first impressions on social interactions

I wonder whether its just comes down to how people tick. Everyone has a particular type of person that rubs them up the wrong way. I was coming out of a pub the other day for a cigarette whilst two girls waited the other side of the door. I then failed to hold the door open for them and as they squeezed past me one of them rather unsubtly muttered 'fucking cunt.' When I went back into the pub it turns out they were going to meet with the same group I was with. The one who called me a cunt didn't even look at me for the rest of the night. So I'm guessing for her not being chivalrous is 'the' thing that rubs her up the wrong way. Hey! I'm a nice guy!

One thing I have noticed is the age thing. Thinking back to when I was 16 up till today I seem to have got worse and worse as I've got older with these irrational judgements. I'm not sure whether it's just me. But thinking about being at school when the girls would go out with the older lads, was it because we were little twerps, or did the older guys just judge us for being little twerps and consequently steer the girls well clear of us.

I don't know maybe I'm clutching at straws to cover up my own social retardation. But I think back to that holiday when I was 16 and do start to think about all the potentially missed opportunities. And if I am not alone, which I'm sure I'm not, then lets give each other a chance and go create some memories.