First Impressions

Original draft date: October 11, 2010

It’s quite sad to think how other people judge us the moment they had laid their eyes upon us. How their first impressions speak falsely about us, bring about total disappointment. But, how can we blame them when all their judgments fitted us and their impressions held our true colors? Can we deny the fact that there are really times when one had to trust his or her first impressions and judge through it?

The incident that made me accept that fact occurred on hot, humid May morning in 2008. I was in-charge of our small hamburger outlet for the whole summer. The disturbance was over in a few minutes, but the memory of it is imprinted forever in my mind.

The outlet was open for quite a few hours away and still there was no customer in sight. I was getting bored and irritated being glued to my seat, watching people hurried past. So you can imagine the gladness I felt when a middle-aged woman made her way towards me. She asked for a hamburger and a soft drink.

I don’t know why, but I had the first thought to refuse her. Maybe it’s because there was something strange about her and out of the ordinary that I had noticed. Nevertheless,
I figured that only a dummy would do that. After all, she was my buena mano and I don’t want to be bad lucked simply because of my silly first impression. Aside from that, you shouldn’t judge someone the moment you had seen them.

So, I cooked and served her order, only to regret it afterwards. As she ate and drank, she kept on talking to me with sundry topics that I becameconfused, and then she would laugh for some unknown reason. Though I couldn’t understand her, I thought it impolite to ignore someone who’s talking to you, so I acted like I’m interested to what she was saying and would also join her in her laughter. But eventually, it dawned on me that she was talking to no one but herself.

I tried to make her pay for what she had eaten, but it was of no use. She only responded with an even more incomprehensible dialogue that would make me out of my mind. I could do nothing, but helplessly watched her shrank from a distance.

First impressions don’t come out from nowhere. The way they are formulated has a basis. There are times when some of them define a person, while some misinterpret him or her. It is now our choice, whether we will trust or reject our first impressions.