(Young Voices Speak is eaglenews.ph’s blank space for the youth to share their opinions, views, and perspective on any topic, issue, or matter)
By Kate Tuazon
Young Voices Speak contributor
“Oh, she’s too full of herself!”
“I thought you were too proud when we first met, I was totally wrong.”
How many times did this situation happen to us? How often do we misunderstand someone or misjudge a person on the first meeting? I admit that I also commit this mistake, until I realized that first impressions don’t always last.
We have all gone through a certain point in our lives when we readily believed anything, like when you were eight and you accidentally swallowed a calamansi seed and your mother told you that branches would grow out of your ears, or those slam book days when everybody in class believed that love is full of mysteries. But there comes a time when we realize that not everything is true, particularly those overly used quotes like first impressions last.
Here’s the thing: We tend to judge people too quickly. What will you think if you see a man wearing cowboy clothes in the middle of the city? Of course we’ll be weirded out and think he’s got a terrific fashion sense. But behind those clothes, that poor man is simply attending a themed party.
Another scenario: It’s your first day in college and you’re excited to meet new people but your seatmate is just sitting there gloomily and won’t utter a single word. Later during lunch, you tell everybody how your seatmate is such a party pooper. Then the next day you learned that your seatmate wasn’t feeling well yesterday and he only pushed himself to go to school because he didn’t want to be absent on the first day.
That bad first meeting was just probably one of the many days in that person’s life, maybe it was an especially tiring day which caused the person’s bad behavior. Give people time so you could get to know them better instead of deciding quickly on what kind of person they are based on your first impression. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Who knows, they might be your next BFF.
(edited by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Vince Villarin)