Impressions

"I judge people without knowing them."
"But you change your mind."

I had to borrow a bit there from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. :)

I knew that when I started blogging that people would judge me by my writing skills and what I chose to write about. Some people saw what I wrote and decided, "Hey, this person is worth getting to know." Others saw it and thought, "Wow. What a bitch." A few others read my blog and decided I was someone that they should be scared to talk to because I seem like a celebrity. [Although I hope by now they realize that I am not!!]

So why am I talking about this? Well, I received an apology yesterday by someone that I've had the opportunity to get to know better via Plurk and IMs and group chat. I won't post the entire thing, but here's a bit of it.

"Your last blogpost touched me very much, especially since I see a lot of myself in that. Apologize I want because I have referred to you as "Paris Hilton of SL", and I feel bad for that now. Sometimes you appear rather superficial, but getting to know you shows me you are a real and good person struggling with life like we all do."

At first I giggled. Paris Hilton. LOL And then I thought, "What if others see me this way, too?"

But the thing is, there are many people who see me that way, I'm sure. There are people who have disliked me because I have opinions, or because I don't have opinions, or because I blog too much, or because I don't blog what they want to see, or...well, any number of reasons.

It is the people who moved past my blog and have gotten to know me that are the ones I cherish in my SL. The ones who tell me, "I was scared to talk to you at first, but I'm glad I did." The ones who are continually supportive.

Then I started thinking, how often have I done this with other people in SL? How often have I read their blogs and thought something about them, but then gotten to know them better and realized my impression of them was either flat out wrong or just a little wrong? How many times have I read a blog and thought, "Oh man, I don't think I'll ever be good enough to talk to this person one on one" or "Wow, that person seems like they'd be frustrating to talk to!"

The answer? Tons of times.

I think that's what makes us all human. They say that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. No, you don't. But you get a second chance.

And you change your mind.