An Introduction: The important, and not so important details.

There are certain things that readily identify you to others: the way you smile, the timbre of your voice, the way you walk into a room, or perhaps that nervous tick you have when you’re in front of your boss. Take away the titles, locations, educational background and salary package for a second. What makes you, you? Well, let me introduce myself to you, who has been kind enough to grace my page with your presence.
I have a passion for teaching. I love Japanese food. I have a near-constant smile on my face that probably serves as a defense mechanism, more often than not. I find cooking therapeutic, and I sing more than I care to admit in front of my work colleagues. Pleased to meet you.
We’re quick to make value judgments about a person’s physical characteristics, and the information that’s immediately presented to us — height, weight, word usage, fashion sense… and then automatically just swipe left or right in our own way, categorising them based on our own worldviews.
A friend of mine recently remarked that it was “a lot harder to make friends these days”. This is probably because we’re set in our ways, with our filters many and varied. These days, we stick to our “own kind”, whereas in primary school, we just wanted someone to play with.
In the introduction to Richard Reed’s “If I Could Tell You Just One Thing…” he makes an interesting remark about getting to know people (usually a luminary or celebrity) through one piece of well-thought out advice. Imagine if you could meet people on that basis.
I often think about how many potentially life-changing friendships I’ve missed out on just because of my own categorical sorting, through my own labels and socioculturally influenced filtration systems. Maybe I should change the way I introduce myself. Might be easier to make some real friends.
