Chris Rock once said “When you’re meeting a person, you’re not really meeting them. You’re meeting their representative.” Since first impressions are so important, it’s understandable that sometimes people might be a little nicer or tolerable during those first few months, but people can’t hide their true colors for too long. However, sometimes it’s important to be able to see past the façade and straight to the person you’re going to be spending time with.
Here are a few innocuous things to try to note that will give you a better indication of how a person’s true nature is, without being too pleasantly/unpleasantly surprised.
How they treat their family:
It is true that you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family; so sometimes people might be more impatient when it comes to family members because they might be more annoying and they spend more time with them. However, no matter how much a family member bothers them, there should still be a sense of protection that the person you’re interested in (either relationship or friendship) should have toward their family members. The same kind that kids have when they talk bad about a sibling or parent and when someone not related to them joins in, they get upset: “Don’t talk about my momma!”
If a person is mean, contemptuous and disloyal to their own family, how do you think you’ll come off in the end?
How they treat their belongings:
I’m a movie buff and I’ve invested a lot of money to build up my movie collection. So when someone asks to borrow one of my movies, I’m very hesitant. But if I decide to be generous, before the movie gets into their hands I remind them of how important that movie is to me (I only buy movies that I really love) and so I expect it back. So imagine my surprise when the mother and cousin of a guy I was dating came to me and asked if they could borrow a few movies. I gave them a few of my favorites, gave them the spiel about “PLEASE take care of my movies” and once I put them in their hands, they were never seen again.
I later found out that they just leave their own things around, and his cousin would allow her children to use her own DVDs as makeshift skates. I occasionally pour some of my soda out for my “Requiem for a Dream,” “Simpsons Season Five” collection, “The Inkwell,” and “Boondocks Season One” collection…ugh…
If someone isn’t willing to take care of things that they spend their own hard earned money on, how do you think they’ll take care of your stuff, and honestly you? They say that things don’t make the person, but you tend to spend money on things that are an extension of you and your interests. If they don’t care much for their own interests, will they really care a lot about you in the long run?
Their Family:
It’s true that a person can overcome the shortcomings of their family, but that can only happen if you work at it. I once dated a guy who would complain about how his family did X, Y, and Z, but when we got serious he did the EXACT same things that he complained that they did. When I would confront him about it, he’ll always say: “You know I’m crazy, that’s how my family is, so I don’t know why you’re surprised.”
No matter how much you might try to move away from your family, certain traits that you learned will be passed down to you. Whether its something good or bad, so watch the fam.
How they treat people who serve them:
A good indicator of how a person will eventually treat you is seeing how they treat people who are servicing them in some way. Whether it’s at a restaurant, a store, or someone who’s helping you to fix something, this person is doing a service for you to make your life easier. If the person in question is rude and mean spirited to a person who’s helping them, just imagine how they’ll eventually treat you.
How much do you know about their friends?
I once had a friend who would tell me everything that other people told her. I began to feel honored that she would trust me with such sensitive information, until someone came up to me and repeated a secret that I’d told my friend. How a person treats their friends, especially best friends, is a good way to find out where you’re going to fall on the board of his/her life. If they like to tell you a bunch of other people’s secrets, know that what you share with them is going to be fair game to share in their eyes as well.
How they Treat Themselves:
I don’t know if there’s really much to say about this, except if a person doesn’t treat themselves well, do you think they’ll really treat you any better?
Kendra Koger has been making her representative as true to herself as possible. Follow her on twitter @kkoger.
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