Bill, Child of the Sixties, put down his coffee cup. He squinted for a second, then cocked his head.
“What happened to your voice?” he asked, the confusion spreading across his face.
This was our second coffee chat after a chance meeting in the quad the week before, when we’d discovered we were in the same class. We’d gone for coffee then, and had arranged this second meeting. I’d just begun to explain why I was a few minutes late when he asked the question.
“Oh, haha,” I said, “Yeah, this is my real voice. I had laryngitis when we first met. My voice was a little hoarse, I guess.”
He looked like he was about to cry.
“I thought that was your real voice,” he said. “I really liked it raspy. I mean, it sounded really. . . good. . . .“ his eyes trailed off, probably to visions of some imaginary raspy-voiced dominatrix sipping coffee with him at the campus Tim Hortons.
For a brief moment, I thought he’d jump up and stomp out of the place.
First impressions are funny, aren’t they?
In the case of my own first impression of Bill, it was based on that initial encounter as well. When he strode over to ask if we were in the same class, I immediately assumed he was a visitor to the campus since he was clearly in his 30s and much older than all the other students.
Tall, lanky and clad completely in denim, his frizzy red hair was the color of a Hawaiian sunset. Within seconds, he told me he’d come back to school after a break and was on a journey to “find” himself.
“Yeah, I guess I really need to figure out what direction I want to go,” he said, slowly nodding and bobbing his head as if channeling Bob Marley. He spoke with a slight drawl, very slowly, like someone who’s been stopped while driving high and chooses every word with care.
“I guess I’m just a child of the 60s,” he went on. “I think I’ll always feel that way. I mean, nothing’s ever going to live up to those days, right?”
Considering I was an actual child in those days, I couldn’t really answer. But from that moment on, he remained “Bill, Child of the Sixties” in my mind, and nothing he did afterwards ever changed that impression.
For better or worse, as humans, we tend to rely on first impressions. In fact, as online business owners, we’re told over and over that we have no more than three seconds (yes, you read that right) to make a good first impression on social media or else people will scroll elsewhere. Like, seriously? If we sneeze, we completely miss out?
But what’s funny about this habit is that first impressions are rarely accurate. (Okay, maybe if you’re walking down a dark alleyway at 1:47 AM and there’s a husky, leather and metal-clad guy panting a few feet behind you, you might get the impression that you’d better hightail it outta there pronto. And that might be a valid first impression. But most of the time? We’re just guessing).
I know, I bet you assume you’re the exception to the rule, right? But studies would prove you wrong.
The problem with using first impressions to determine the trajectory of our friendships, our major decisions or our lives in general is that they are woefully inaccurate.
According to social psychologist Randall Colvin, our first impressions are accurate only about 30% of the time. That leaves you with the wrong impression in seven out of ten encounters.
I recall one friend from back in my 30s who went on blind dates–a LOT. he had a very clear vision of what she wanted her future husband to be like, and she decided almost instantaneously whether that day’s blind date measured up or not.
It might have been that he wore cowboy boots (far too uncouth). Or his blazer had patches on the pockets (soooo pretentious). Maybe he didn’t pull the chair out for her (ignorant of proper etiquette). Or maybe he breathed too loudly while perusing the menu (impossible to sleep with). And on and on.
One instance, in particular, remains with me: the man in question was a systems analyst (she wasn’t sure what that meant, but she knew it was a lucrative position with lots of promise).
They’d gone out for dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant. He’d passed all of the tests up to that point: expensive car, dressed in casual but pricey brand-name clothing; ordered acceptable wine and food and paid for dinner (on a side note: why do we STILL expect men to pay for dinner in 2024? Aren’t women working these days? Why should the man pay on a date just because they’re men? Gah.).
But then, it happened. The nail in the coffin: He walked her to her door. They kissed. It was lovely. And then–
“When can I see you again?” he asked. “Are you free tomorrow night?”
TOMORROW?! GASP!!
Didn’t he know the unspoken rule that you’re required to wait at least three days before asking a woman out for a second date–?! What was he thinking??
So, just like that–he was stricken from the “promising” list, and she never saw him again.
Last I heard, the guy ended up married to a lovely young woman, had three kids, became a Senior VP of a software company and lived in a mansion in the nouveau-riche part of town. So maybe she was just a little too hasty in solidifying that first impression.
One of the sad realities about even inaccurate first impressions is that we tend to cling to them like passengers thrown overboard cling to life preservers.
Even when given ample time to reassess the people we’ve met in real life, we tend to rely on those inaccurate first impressions anyway. Previous life experience, biases based on our value systems, personal preferences and idiosyncrasies all play into our judgment of others.
Dorie Clark, author of the bestselling Reinventing You and, most recently, The Long Game, noted in an article for Harvard Business Review that “The reason people don’t often change their initial impressions is that our brain is optimized to conserve energy; if there’s not a compelling reason to re-evaluate something, then we won’t.”
Yep. Humans are generally lazy. And that may not be such a good thing.
Years ago, I hired a woman to help me with my then-fledgling business. She was gruff, spoke in monosyllables and offered no real help to speak of.
After almost two hours together, I left the office feeling cheated and angry that I’d spent so much money to receive what was basically advice I could have Googled for free. I never forgot the encounter, and carried that resentment for decades.
When I noticed her flitting around social media (we have some friends in common), I made a conscious effort to stay as far away from her as possible. After all, wasn’t she a cheat and a con artist?
As fate would have it, our paths crossed during the pandemic. As I’ve gotten to know the more mature, evolved person, I’m amazed at how much I like her. Yes, she can still be a little gruff and perhaps too direct for most people.
And while her manner might still be off-putting for many, I’ve learned that the period when we met was a particularly difficult one for her, and she might not have been at her bestback then.. Now that we’ve become friends, I regret all the years we could have been in touch but weren’t, for no other reason than my skewed first impression.
Should you give people second chances even when your first impression is negative? I guess the answer is, “it depends.”
Is there a benefit to be had now if you were wrong back then? Do you have anything to lose if the first impression was actually correct?
And most important: Would you wish to be given a second chance from someone who’d misjudged you in the past?
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So interesting and so true. I've been wrong about first impressions often, but a few times, I've been right.