You shouldn’t judge a book only by its cover, but the cover can give you a lot of information about the book.
Judging them by the first 5 minutes of interaction is the cover. As a fast food employee you’re not going to learn that they just got fired from their job and the divorce was just completed today and the wife gets all the kids.
A book’s cover really only has two functions:
-
Protect the book
-
Tell you little bit about the book so you can judge whether or not to read it
Precisely. Some folks role play ‘normal’ people in public to make it easier. Others rp as ‘crazy’ people to make you keep your distance.
When a book stops just being a ‘book’ and instead becomes ‘lord of the rings’, that’s when cover-judging no longer applies.
In that same way, a person becomes a friend/coworker/family. Until that happens, the only thing you have is the cover.
With exposure to neurodivergent posts online, it became apparent to me that even interacting with people is an unreliable way of discerning someone’s character.
Some people are highly anxious, which can manifest in all sorts of ways, from seeming like an asshole, to being erratic and sketchy.
I’m sure we’ve all had situations where we said something, later realizing how it could be misconstrued.
Then we’ve got people with autism, schizophrenia, ADHD, depression, etc.
And that’s without mentioning the personal circumstances of the day, week or month.
Just don’t judge people if it’s unlikely to cost you anything.
Choose compassion, patience and respect. You will never know the plight of a stranger.
The rule that the way you go into the interaction reciprocally influences the way people interact with you might be more important here. So if you treat ppl with the expectation that theyre gonna be dicks, guess what, theyre gonna feel that and probably wont be too pleased about it and behave accordingly.
…oh my god it’s a fat white guy with gas station sunglasses and cargo shorts…
“Hi asshole, what can I help you with today?”