By Royane Real

Author of  “Your Guide to Finding Friends, Making Friends and Keeping Friends”

We’ve all heard that first impressions when we meet someone new can be very important.  But, have you ever wondered if it’s really true that first impressions can make or break a new relationship? And why should first impressions make such a difference?  After all, first impressions only take a few seconds.

Take a moment to think back to all the times you have been introduced to someone new, and you instantly decided you weren’t interested in that person or you felt right away like you didn’t like them.

You immediately wrote them off, but why?  Perhaps they were wearing clothes that you disapproved of, or maybe you didn’t like their voice, or maybe they made some odd little remark you didn’t like. You might not even know why you weren't interested in them.

When we have a bad first impression of somebody else, we usually feel justified in our opinion of them.  We just say “I had this bad gut feeling about him.” 

Sometimes we have the opposite experience, and we have a good first impression of someone new, based on knowing them for just a few seconds.

Our gut feelings are often based on a five or ten second window where we make up our minds whether to like this person or not, shortly after we meet them.

Our tendency to make snap decisions about other people is a funny thing.  When we do make a snap decision to reject someone else that we have known for five seconds, we tend to believe we are completely justified.

But when we realize that other people are making snap decisions about us, and deciding to write us off after knowing us for only five seconds, we feel outraged.  “How could this person possibly know me based on meeting me for just a few seconds!  I’m such a complicated interesting person that you could know me for years, and still not know everything about me!”

It all boils down to this:  when we make negative snap decisions about somebody based on our first impression of them, we feel as if we are right.  When we find out someone else has made a negative snap decision about us based on first impressions, we are convinced they are wrong.

Why does this happen?  Making snap decisions based on first impressions is just the way our brain works.  Our brain is programmed to make a lot of its decisions very quickly. 

Your brain doesn’t much care if these snap decisions are right or wrong, because it has lots of other things to think about.

If you reject one person instantly and decide you could never be his friend, you might find someone you like better just a few minutes later.  Or the next time you see this same person, your brain might come up with a different result.

If you’re worried that too many people are rejecting you too quickly without even giving you a chance, there are a few things you can do that can increase the likelihood of a good first impression.

That means you have to give other people a reason to feel that you are safe and non-threatening.  Often that is best accomplished by looking like them, and talking like them.

If you look or dress differently than what they are used to, you have to quickly try to find a few other things you might have in common. 

And you have to be careful that you don’t offend new people if you want to make a good first impression.  When you don’t know somebody, you can easily say something that will offend them or hurt their feelings.  You can’t act like a know-it-all, or an overly aggressive person.  You can’t be rude. 

You’ll be much more likely to cause a favorable first impression if you acted interested and polite.  

This article is written by friendship expert Royane Real.

To get more help in making friends, get my popular book “Your Guide to Finding Friends, Making Friends and Keeping Friends”   Improve your social life and download it today at  http://www.lulu.com/real )

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