Beware of First Impressions

A few years ago I met a couple of people around the same time. One was more extroverted and charismatic, call him Bob, the other more serious and quiet, call him Jim. I initially became closer with Bob. He was much easier to talk to. I was a bit intimidated by Jim. Yet over the years I had the opportunity to interact many times with both and realized that I didn't really like Bob very much. Sure, at first he seemed nice & fun, but it turned out underneath he was a bit mean and didn't share any of my values. Jim, on the other hand, turned out to be the nicest guy. Sure, he is a quiet guy, but after talking with him enough times I realized we got along very well and had many shared values and beliefs.

I thought this was a timely anecdote to share with the boys as Paco is about to go to a new school for high school. He will meet dozens of classmates and might decide who to befriend based on first impressions... The good news if that in a situation such as high school, Paco will have plenty of time to get to know most (if not all) of his classmates - and thus move beyond first impressions. Most situations in life are not like that. So what to do? At least one should be aware of the imperfect nature of first impression judgements. Be careful about "superficial" traits that might make someone likeable, e.g., charisma, and those traits that might make other people harder to relate to, e.g., seriousness, shyness. Figure out what is it that you really care about in people and assess that.