Throughout my life I’ve heard people say that first impressions are most important. I disagree, aren’t last impressions even more important? To me, I usually withhold passing judgment on a person. I do not allow the first impression to dictate the entirety of this person. To me the thousandth impression is most important. Because if you see a person 1000 times after the first meeting then this person obviously has some sort of significance to your life. At least you must associate with this person somehow.
If you meet somebody for the thousandth time then you may begin to know him/her truly. First impressions are less important because people have their guards up. Everybody is on the defensive and not 100% honest on a first meeting. Because people are distrustful of strangers, and dishonest.
And even if you do meet somebody for the thousandth time, perhaps an even more important impression is the final one. You’ll never see this person again. Maybe they’ll die. But there is a finality to the last impression. If somebody never crosses your path again, then your memory of him/her will at least linger, depending on that final impression. Many people want to make a strong first impression, and are dishonest, in order to meet for a second time, like a job interview. They dress themselves up and play themselves off, make more of themselves than they actually are, honestly. But this presumes that you want to see people again, what if you don’t? If you don’t want to see people again, then leaving a good impression is counterproductive.
But whether you want to be liked or disliked, that final impression is how people leave each other. It’s that aftertaste of a meal, that you loved or hated. Because it lasts until the next time you want to relive it.
This is all hypothesis, conjecture and wishful thinking. Most people would rather not put their best foot foreward, because this is no longer the 20th centruy. They have been jaded too many times not to think of the impracticality of having to face the person who has such very high expectations of them.
I think what is meant by that, whether true or not, is that first impressions are the most important those who are making the impression, not those who are getting it. Surely, to the first person, the last impression doesn’t mean a lot, since the two will never interact again.
Impressions are really impressions, after all, and there is a wide range of variability as to what is behind them. Most people would not want to enter or terminate a relationship on basis of either, first or last impression. If they thought along those lines, they may put too little store to the others’ impression
Of them.
I haven’t really considered the perspective of the impressor and impressee, until recent years. I had always presumed that a strong first impression was the duty of the impressor, not the impressee. But now I have a new perspective, of the impressee, of having higher standards. So there definitely is something to say about that.
There is a giver and receiver of the impression. It seems most people are expected to give. But aren’t we neglecting the expectation to receive? Isn’t it your duty to hold people to higher expectations, or what’s more, encourage people to realize their potential? For example, a young person may go to a job interview, but what realistic expectations ought the employers have of a younger person? This person is likely ignorant of the world, and therefore, ignorant of which impressions to give or receive, as well as a lack of experience and knowledge about self presentation in general.
Why should people be held accountable for presenting their “best”, especially on the first impression? That’s why I offer the thousandth impression as an alternative. Because it indicates that people are not thinking ahead, but instead, thinking of the short term, and what short term uses and expectations have of each other.
Furthermore, impressions mean something very different in a sparse rather than condensed population. In a city, with millions of people, obviously a first impression is very important. Because people do not expect to remember each other. But in a sparse population, with few people, people are expected to remember each other. And you can apply this principle to all 7 billion humans on earth, if you want to get the full effect.
That course of reasoning gives rise to what purpose impressions are constructed.
If impressions are, as in a young person’s attempt to gain employment, the thought should occur that the duration of employ may be short or long term. The young man may go overboard in his self presentation, not knowing that is not always the best course to follow, since his best interest may be quite the opposite: that of understatement, since his employer may think the man is on the humble side, yet keeping in mind that his humility may be a partial masking of his intelligence, in not presuming the expected employ may be nothing but a trial run.
On the other hand the bargained for presentation of mutual impressions maybe nothing else but a search for a desirable companion. So it may just depend.