here's looking at you kid. when you meet people, you're always consciously or unconsciously trying to impart a vibe. some people are better at it than others, some people are easy to read and to figure out. some people bring it much more subtley. but it's a game we all play. with first impressions. trying to present ourselves as professional, nice, welcoming, bitchy, whatever, in different situations. i feel like it's a very conscious thing. or at least, after you've had some social experiences under your belt, it can be "figured out" and recognized. for some people it's about presenting themselves in the best manner possible. glorifying the positive, hiding the negative. or maybe it's not that deep, because it's only a first impression after all.



i see people wanting to come off as cool, accomplished, insightful, wise, smarmy, smart, funny, clowny, drunkard, partier, deep, crazy, shocking or any number of things. some people want to come off as reserved whereas some people want to show how open they are and how comfortable they are with themselves. it's also interesting to note what certain people try to vibe out. especially with friends that you already know. to study them in interactions with strangers or friends, to see how they present themselves. how open or closed they are, the tone of voice they use, the body language.



i've decided, after some thought and deliberation (not much as usual), that the impression i try to give off is that i'm open to anything someone might say to me. that i won't judge them or be taken aback by anything that comes out of their mouth. if they say something, i want them to be comfortable continuing their thought or their story without feeling like i'm evaluating them right then and there. i try to save the evaluations for later and for behind the back gossipy shit. no i'm lying. well no, actually i'm not. but hey. honesty right?



this can at times lead to being too agree-able. i had someone ask me recently if i "pull my punches" and say what people want to hear. if i withhold the negative and present the positive, the affirmative head nod or the verbal "i feel you, uh hum uh hum." i of course didn't think so. but i can see how it might come off that way. i can even see some truth in her observation. would that make me a suck up? god forbid. but no, i am not a suck up. i think as the innately nice guy that i am (save the laughter for the stand up routine people) i couch some of my negative comments in positive and supportive language. and i feel like i'm being positive because i actually am positive with what i say, but what if i'm just witholding the real negative things back? some people say what they want to say, what they have to say, right at the moment. i know i'm not like that. but i would like to believe that i'm not withholding anything either. if asked i attempt to reply honestly. never in a mean or menacing way, but if it's negative, so be it. i also measure the impact of my words, and try to gauge whether or not i can be more directly negative or positive, depending on how well i know a person, or how close i might be to them. and more importantly, gauging how they might react and how to best approach something that may come across as negative.



everyone puts on a show, it's a matter of how grand of a scale that show is produced on. many times the show is subconscious and unconscious but i believe that as we grow into ourselves, our motivations, our interactions, our goals in these interactions, become more straight forwardly clear. and it's interesting, amusing even, to think about that and to observe how people try to come off, and then to compare that to what they think they're giving vibing off.