Put your hands down, fools, nobody can see you.
*wee rant: Naturally loud people. The kind that want to talk-loudly and about the minutiae of the day's to dos--from the moment they wake up until they fall asleep, slam--accidentally or not--13 doors in the span of a half hour, and just make general noise noise noise all the live long day. I don't get that.*
Yesterday: Continuing on my postgraduate week of events (I attended book club monday and cupcake decorating tuesday), I went to a culture vulture breakfast yesterday morning. I met back up with a girl named Fiona, who looks like she's related to the Weasleys and that is just so cool, and we bonded with a man named Mark.
Together, after I spent a bit of time trying to understand the bowl of cocoa looking coffee powder Fiona tried to convince me was coffee if mixed with water. No. Anyway, the three of us talked over educational differences between our two countries as well as relational culture versus task-oriented culture, and, of course, alcohol, Christianity, and Chicago.
The afternoon, I spent with Oscar Wilde (whose short stories are absolutely wonderful, by the way) and a book entitled The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (for book club).
Next up on the agenda was an event I signed up for mid-summer, actually: Pride and Prejudice the musical. It was a hoot! Mr. Collins made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion and, I suppose because they were short-casted, the characters of Mary, Lady Catherine, and Anne were all doubles with the men who played Mr. Wickham and Mr. Bennett. Hysterical.
It was at this play that I met Emma and Tom. Emma is a Chinese Brit, named for Emma, knits My Little Pony and Pokemon characters (seriously talented in a bizarre way), has no problem throwing away books, and grabs the hair buns of strangers.
Tom doesn't dream, refuses to kill spiders, and has some very strong views about bees and their keeping--a subject matter which has oddly come up a lot recently.
Afterward, because I'd missed my bus and Elaine had graciously decided to come fetch me, I found myself walking back to Queen's from the theatre. On my way there, I was joined by three toga'd, drunk, sophomores. They kept asking me to join them to their party and just didn't understand when I told them I must disappoint. Though I never leave the house without a toga, I had been caught unawares and was thus togaless.
We got on charmingly until they asked after my gun-handling views. Apparently, pro-gun okies are not popular here. First impressions, eh?
And that only an inconsequential first impression. If they left that encounter thinking I was a gun-slinging cowgirl, that's okay with me. It's the first impressions that matter that concern me.
I am often told I have a dreadful first impression. I'm either too over-eager to be friends that I quite forget myself and don't track what I'm saying and come across as almost panicked for affection or I come across as stand-offish and painfully shy or some find me a terrible flirt (an alternative version of #1).
It doesn't bother me much that people generally remain wary of me until encounter 3 (where I'm told I become quite loveable). The problem is that sometimes I come across people who choose never to see past impression one.
With them, it doesn't matter how long they know me, in how many capacities, or referenced to positively by other people, they will always see panicked and frazzled and unreliable.
If I'm dating your ex, if I smack my gum, if I punched your grandmother in the face, please, dislike me. I'll be okay with it. The area I truly struggle in is when you dislike who you think I am and judge me because of it. There's no way for me to fix it. The Lord and I are working through a particular wrinkle in that area.
It is a humbling process as well as one which looks as though it will be very, very long in the making. What I'm learning is that I cannot work to try to make others see me for who I am. Rather, I have to live and follow after God, seeking his approval alone, and not think about it. Not ignoring them or be rude (which wouldn't happen if I'm truly following God) but not trying to change their minds.
I have to let go of that relationship and allow God to define my reputation. Not me.
So if I walk by a door and hear ungracious chatter about me, ok. If I am chastised unjusty, ok. And if it never gets better and the most that's ever managed is mutual toleration, ok. However, I believe that God is greater than alpha personalities, and if Darcy and Elizabeth could work through their first impressions of one another, surely it'll all turn right. :)
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