Navel Gazing: First Impressions.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about first impressions. Mostly about how I just don't seem to give off the best ones. I'm kind of tricksy-- I can be a little bristly when I first meet new people. It's not intentional, more that I'm one of those people who loosens up the longer they know someone. As a result, when I'm meeting lots of new people at the same time, I have a tendency to be a little awkward, because I'm feeling the crowd out. Norms and expected/accepted behavior vary so much from group to group, and I know that I'm prone to foot-in-mouth disease, so I'm generally a little more subdued until I know the group a little better. I like to know what eggshells not to step on, you know? Well, that and there's also my auto-response of "the more I tease you, the more I actually like you." Because as we all know, my socialization skills got stuck somewhere around third grade. I really do much better one-on-one and in small groups, I think, or when adding new people to a group I'm already comfortable with. I have my bearings, so to speak.

Anyway, out of curiosity... I'm going to screen the replies to this post, at least at first. Answer anonymously if you'd like, but if you've met me in person, I'd like to know about your first impression of me, and how/if that changed over time. If you have other observations about first impressions in general, I'll unscreen them automatically. Just let me know if it's not okay to do so.