I remember one time I made a snap judgment about someone that ended up being very wrong. Here’s the story:
My then-husband and I had made reservations at The Melting Pot to celebrate his birthday. We ended up both having long, rotten days, and were in seriously foul moods by the time we got to the restaurant. After being seated, our server came over and introduced himself with an accent – the sort of accent that deaf people often have. Sure enough, he explained that he was very hard of hearing, and could we please make sure to face him when speaking and clearly annunciate so that he could watch our lips as we spoke.
Great. Hubby and I were both dismayed that we would be capping off this horrible day by having a server who couldn’t even hear us.
But the server ended up performing flawlessly. He got our orders exactly right, even when we had questions, requested substitutions, or had other special requests.
What’s more, he managed to lift our moods. He didn’t do what so many well-meaning but clueless servers do, where they act so overbearingly bright and perky that you just want them to leave you the hell alone. Instead, he was able to appropriately gauge the energy at the table. Hubby and I are about 50% introvert and 50% extrovert, so we can enjoy some small talk, but we certainly don’t enjoy everyone. This guy asked some questions about what we were celebrating and how our days had been, made some appropriately appreciative and sympathetic comments in response, and made some witty comments that got us laughing. By the end of the meal, we were smiling and laughing and joking around with him. Probably left him the biggest tip we’ve ever left anyone.
Does anyone else have an experience like this to share? One where they met a person, immediately expected the worst, and then ended up having a great experience with them?
I used to get into online arguments with a neighbor on a regular basis. It got so bad I became a Nextdoor mod so I would be forced to behave myself.
I started working for the Census and got sent to his door. I was dreading it because he was such a jerk online.
I knocked on his door and met the nicest man. (He didn’t know who I was.) He invited me in and when I refused, held his door wide open so the cool air would wash over me. He answered all of my questions and offered me a bottle of cold water when I left and was just a very pleasant person.
The classic example one reads/sees a movie about is two people who on first meeting find each other objectionable–and then end up falling in love/getting married, for example the 1940 movie The Shop Around the Corner.
Has this happened to anyone here to someone they know?
I was out to lunch with a friend and we both paid separately by credit card. The server accepted mine without hesitation but asked to see some ID when my friend gave him his. I thought it was probably because my friend is black, so I planned to make a stink when the server returned, but first I asked my friend about it. He said it was because he put a sticker on his card telling people to request ID before running the card.
This happened to me my freshman year of college. There was a girl who lived on my floor in the dorm, and we did not get along. At. All. By the end of the school year we were dating.
I’ve been wrong a handful of times… I guess I try to see the better parts of people, but many times, I’ve been wrong, and let myself down for having bad judgement and for whatever bullshit happened. It’s worse when I think to myself, “Yeah those previous people were dishonest/bad/etc., but not this person”… Even 20 years later, I’m bugged, because some people can have quite the effect. Especially when mutual friends would say, “John Doe has been burning bridges since he’s getting married and has no plans to keep friends”, while I would respond with, “I can define him by the way he treats me”, because each person is different, especially when one of the friends is a woman, and you have the sexual undercurrent and/or incidents. But I was wrong… I think its a reason I haven’t met anyone new (that actually became a friend)…
I don’t think he ever did figure it out. I will say that the way I responded to him online sure changed. Instead of mentally calling him an asshole every time I saw his name, I started mentally picking on his grammar and spelling while I tried to figure out what he really meant. He had good points, he was just really bad at expressing himself online.
During my career, I noticed a strange pattern. I didn’t get into many confrontational situations with my clients, but on very infrequent occasions I did. It always happened towards the beginning of the professional relationship - during our first project - and it usually involved a spat over pricing or delivery delays.
The pattern was ……that those were always the clients I ended up having the best professional relationships with. To this day I’m not sure why, but maybe it has to do with self-expression and not letting resentments build up,etc.
Another one - my nephew was dating a young woman -Pam- that was the “frenemy” of a close family friend, Betty. It was always a little awkward having those two around taking potshots at each other at every family occasion, even though Betty was the one that introduced my nephew to his girlfriend.
Now Pam is religious and a little bit conservative ( at least she was when I met her, I’ve succeeded in liberalizing her ). Once, right after we met, we were having a conversation about Betty and her latest boyfriend, who was black and a caught Pam making a face of disgust.
I approached someone else that was present and said……Does Pam have a problem with Betty dating Jim? Is it because he’s black? That person laughed and told me that while Pam did indeed have a little bit of problem with it, it was because she used to date Jim herself.