When he was young, my son and I played a game that I call Or Maybe. We’d see a stranger somewhere and we’d come up with possible explanations for whatever behavior they were exhibiting at the moment. Say we’d see someone speeding by too fast. Together we’d list possibilities. “Maybe he just robbed a bank. Or maybe his speedometer is broken. Or maybe he’s on the way to the hospital because his wife is having a baby.”

In my effort to teach my son not to make snap judgments about people, I never gave my actual opinion: The driver was probably a lawless wretch that didn’t give a hoot about the safety of others.

I thought of the Or Maybe game recently when I heard a speaker at a conference I attended. She said that when we meet someone for the first time, it takes them just seven seconds to make up their mind about us. Seven seconds! That leaves very little time for “or maybes.”

The speaker’s point was we’re being judged whether we like it or not so we should be intentional about our looks, body language and clothing. She didn’t mention it, but I think that means bathing regularly and avoiding T-shirts with slogans like, “Who cares what you think?” or “It’s not just you. I don’t like anybody.” 

And it’s hard to change a bad first impression. Maybe that explains why people who met me that day I went to work wearing one black shoe and one blue shoe still look at me funny. Not really. I didn’t actually meet anyone new that day. I’m not sure why people still look at me funny.

As someone who’s never learned how to fix my own hair, I’m disturbed to learn that people are judging me so quickly. Maybe there’s some evolutionary reason for it. Our ancestors had to decide quickly whether every human they met was out to break into their cave and carry away the woolly mammoth meat in their deep freeze.

Now that we no longer keep woolly mammoths in our freezers, I think it’s high time we knock it off—for my sake. I can think of many times when someone could have made a hasty judgement about me and been dead wrong.

Anyone who saw me picking the pecans off my salad at a luncheon I attended may have assumed that I either don’t like nuts or that I’m allergic to them. Wrong on both counts. I was actually setting them aside for later. We were having frosted brownies for dessert and while I like nuts on salad, I like them more on frosted brownies.

I have a habit of resting my left arm in the strap of my cross-body purse. Apparently at first glance it looks like I’m wearing a sling because at least three people have commented on my injured arm—which isn’t injured. I did like the attention though..

I worked as a waitress when I was in high school. Cigarettes were sold in vending machines then and even though I wasn’t 18 I could easily have purchased them if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. But customers often gave me money to buy cigarettes for them from the restaurant’s vending machine. I figured refusing might affect my tip, so I did as I was asked. But all the while, I worried that anyone watching would assume I smoked — and that they would tell my parents.

You can see why I think everyone should take more than seven seconds to make up their minds about other people—especially me. I could easily have been pegged inaccurately as a smoker with a broken arm and a nut allergy.

Dorothy Rosby is an author and humor columnist whose work appears regularly in publications in the West and Midwest. You can subscribe to her blog at www.dorothyrosby.com or contact at www.dorothyrosby.com/contact.