a b c

SUPER LONG AND UNINTERESTING POST. RANTING GUARANTEED.
BE WARNED

this comes after having a conversation with one of my friends. it reminded me how important first impressions are. even more, it reminded me of how well they stick in your mind.

this is the thing with people. when you meet someone, you form an impression, and very often, that's what you associate them with for a long, long while after - or at least until you get to know them A LOT better.

for example, when i first met CHENG LOON, we didn't talk much. and unconsciously, in my mind i thought of him as quiet [cause i never heard him talk]. i also noticed that he's really good with his guitar. BUT.. how wrong i was. no, he plays guitar really well, but quiet? not only can he hold decent conversations, he comes up with some of the sharpest insults EVER. i swear, his sarcastic remarks are of such depth they defy the understanding of my underdeveloped mind [this is a gross exaggeration. my mind is SUPER-UNDERDEVELOPED].

BUT, that said, i'm still surprised when i talk to him sometimes, because my brain keeps screaming 'HE'S QUIET'!!! and this conflicts with how he really is. sad, huh.

we digress [a phrase i picked up from jon]. i was talking to my friend, and she voiced her feelings about this other person whom she's never spoken to. apparently, A told B that C told A that C didn't like my friend, so she got slightly upset. all of them are my friends and i'm careful not to take sides, cause i don't know the full story either.

but here's the thing that gets me. she immediately didn't like the other girl. like she said, she's never spoken to her before, but she's doing exactly what the other girl did to her. forming impressions.

sometimes you meet a person and you immediately click. sometimes you don't. it's like that. if you click well, then it's all good. if you don't, it could go either way. you could get to know that person a lot better afterwards, or you could hate their guts. of course, you could remain totally neutral but that's not the point. the problem is that people keep saying "first impressions count", and they do. they really do.

everybody acts differently in front of people they've just met. i think i'm guilty of this too, although my degree of 'different' is very small [i.e. i'm only marginally less stupid in front of people i don't know]. for most people, meeting someone for the first time calls for extra polite language and more demure body language [for girls. for guys it's extra-vulgar jokes and super-agressive movements]. i am, of course, making generalizations.

we talked about this. the problem is, you care too much about what other people are gonna think of you. you know why? cause you know what you think about other people. you'd be totally comfortable around EVERYBODY if you yourself felt that everyone you knew had no faults whatsoever. it's cause YOU form judgements about other people that you feel insecure about how other people feel about you. hence, being stiff and awkward and pretentious in front of new people.

i, personally, do not suffer from this problem, much. i do judge people, and i'm not completely immune to the thoughts of others, i admit, but i have come to a point where it's no longer important to me. it's not that i don't care [i do, a little], it just doesn't matter to me anymore. honestly, i used to care. not to the point where i centered my life around trying to make people think i'm awesome.. i just cared.

it seems so stupid now... because i've found people that i actually LIKE being around - and most importantly, they can take my ludicrously idiotic character WITHOUT cringing. i could bounce around the school on my butt and they'd just be "she's being kim. no biggie."

we talked about LOVE at youth last night. first question was to circle three words from a whole list that you felt best described love. a few of us circled "accepting".. you know why? because we know that if love wasn't totally accepting, God wouldn't love us. and nobody else would either, because there will always be aspects of us that others will not like. it is because they are accepting that they love us anyway.

is it impossible to love certain people? no. it's not easy. but it's not impossible.