Maybe it's just me. But I hope not. Because I don't always set a first impression that I'm happy with. And that first experience is so obviously just a sliver of what makes me up as a person. I am not your first impression of me. How could I be?
I find that my first impressions of people are so very often surprisingly incorrect views of how I come to know someone over time. Am I just that bad at reading people? Maybe. But I always give folks more of a chance.
First impressions are only important when you have just one chance to win someone over. "One chance to make a first impression" gets too much credence if you ask me. Job interviews, for example, are so fabricated and awful. But, while providing a short-term view, they're intensive. I work hard to be myself, authentically myself, so they might get a chance to see "who I am" in that first impression. But who knows what they really see. They're limited by their own filters, just as I am when I meet someone the first time.
Maya Angelou said, "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time." If you meet me the first time after a yoga class, or after a day trekking errands with two grumbly children in tow, you will have 2 different impressions of me. Guaranteed. Showing who you are is something entirely different than a first impression could ever be.
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