First Impressions
Been talking to friends about First Im
pressions. Not what you say out loud (of course that’s lovely), but what you’re really thinking when you meet someone new.
Funnily enough, the people to whom I’m closest are usually the ones I initially find Most Intimidating. But – it seems – they feel the same way too.
Example.
A married friend with a beautiful child. Our husbands met first, and then decided we should all get together.
Glen: ‘They’re lovely! She’s funny and smart and easy to talk to. You’ll get on really well’
Me: ‘She sounds AWFUL. I don’t want to meet someone bright and nice with a beautiful husband and a beautiful child. We have nothing in common’.
Glen: ‘Don’t be silly. Your beautiful husband is getting the car and we can pray on the way’.
Me; ‘Fine. But we’re not staying long. And she’d better be ugly’.
We arrived.
She wasn’t ugly. She was gorgeous. Successful, beautiful, godly, fertile. And Me: A childless, non-working, recovering anorexic with Bad Hair and Holes in Her Socks.
Me: ‘HIIIIIIII! So Greeeat to meet you’. (Robert De Niro, watch and learn)
But we did stay. And once I’d stopped apologising for my socks, we started chatting. It turned out that she was a Real Person. Funny and kind and sparky (but in a Good way). We met up again (this time without the buffer of Men). And again. Over time, we got to know one another. And she told me about her trepidation on meeting me. (I know: I choked on my coffee too). Here’s the thing – as I was telling Glen I had a tropical fever and couldn’t go, she was telling her husband she’d rather pull out her teeth than meet someone young, thin and trendy who wasn’t sporting baby vomit.
And on it goes.
Marrieds muttering about singles and their (slightly selfish) life of hedonism, late nights and illicit encounters.
Single friends believing marrieds don’t feel the cold, because they’re wrapped up in their own cosy sexy smugness.
Parents wistfully dreaming of the occasional night off. Or comparing themselves unfavourably with Supernanny.
Bald men who want to be hairy. Fat men who want to be thin. Normals who read Men’s Health and feel like giving up.
…
Are we all thinking the same crazy stuff?
Image source: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/honest.png
Mostly…Although. My frist impression of you was that you were hilarious – the story of Vannessa Feltz actually had me laughing for the rest of the day!
Glad to realise I wasn’t wrong (I think we both share a slightly odd sense of humour!) – but also that you’re beautiful, kind, and godly. Yup.
Right. Gushing over now!
Holey socks on show must mean it was a shoes off house…they are usually the most scary as they are cleaner. And you never know if you should take your shoes off or not… Dilemmas.
Funnily enough, the same thing keeps on happening to me. Minus the baby vomit. I keep on thinking something will be awful only to turn up, enjoy it, and realise somewhere along the way that everyone else isn’t as perfect or secure as I thought. There has to be a lesson in there somewhere!!
“she’d better be ugly” and “…I don’t want to meet someone young, thin, and trendy…” I’m going to die laughing! Yes! I guess we are all thinking the same things. I have very nearly ruined (and sometimes avoided) so many great relationships with this kind of petty comparison.
There is a passage I love at the end of the book of John where Peter wants to know what’s going to happen to John and Jesus says: What’s it to you? What happens to him is my business. You follow me (highly paraphrased). This has helped me so often as I have that terrible habit of trying to be God myself. You know, wanting to be PERFECT and THE BEST at …whatever. Being a big fish in a small pond means we have to keep making that pond smaller and smaller until it’s so tight we can hardly move with out bumping into ourselves. I think this is the root of a lot of ‘disorders’ and syndromes. Looking to Christ for my identity is the only thing I’ve ever found to make me stretch the edges of that pond and let some others in, even if they might be thinner.