Yeah… I had that happen recently. And now everything that person is involved in feels tainted. I know it isn’t, in reality. At least I don’t think it’s all tainted (crossing my fingers and praying!). But it all feels… diminished. Less that what it was before.

Which is really sad, and very difficult to know how to handle because I’m much attached to most of it. Attached in attraction and attached in commitment. But now I don’t want to be attached at all. The attraction is very diminished. But I’m already committed — guess I should have looked closer before I leaped.

I know Grace is in order here. Giving grace for hard times, for
struggles, for character faults. Goodness knows I need grace constantly! And I’m willing to give it…
I think. I just don’t want to be around the person if I don’t have to
be. And now I find myself avoiding places and events I think they will
be at simply so I don’t have to deal with feeling yucky after running
into them. Not good.

I wonder if first impressions are generally right more than wrong. I realize some people I meet are not having a good day or are just having a rough go of life at the moment. I know I would want someone to give me a second chance, a chance to redeem myself, if they met me on a bad day or during a rough spot in life.

But even in those hard, rough, times you can generally get a sense of a person’s character, don’t you think? It is never more on display than when a person is under stress, I think. That’s when you really find out what a person is made of.

There have only been a few times that I can think of when my first impression turned out to be incorrect (but I’m willing to admit my memory is rather faulty at times). I wonder, is that because I read most people right, or because I just choose to accept my first impression as truth and always see them that way?