Sunday, December 14, 2008

Judging

Sometimes you can't help but judge a book by its cover. In this case, instead of a book, I mean people.

Coming to a new place and new ward after being in my ward for 10+ years, it's easy to come to some sort of conclusion about people just based on the meaningless small talk that ensues at ward activities, or in class. Whatever.

Now, one of my biggest faults is that I can be extremely judgmental. It's bad, really. It's going to make me bitter in my old age if I let it. I can already tell. I always end up coming to some sort of false initial conclusion about people based on mostly superficial things or quirks they may have, but in the end...I sort of like them! Those people grow on me, and my initial opinion on them is wrong. It's just how it is and how it goes. I kind of try to prove myself wrong as I get to know them better. I have a hard time with people who appear to have that "popular-high-school" look, though. I don't know how to define this particular kind of people, but I have this terrible, wrong stereotype in my head that they're all stuck-up, self-centered people who don't care about anybody else unless it benefits them.

Now, one of these kinds of people is in my ward, and is a very attractive guy. Like I said, I formulate awful opinions even when I don't know people, and also like I said, I'm almost always wrong in my opinions. We'll call this guy Michael. I had never actually met Michael until last week, and figured I would introduce myself at a ward activity we had and maybe get to know a little more about him. Upon talking with him, I found myself thinking that my initial opinions of him were....well, kind of right on. He wasn't really friendly to me, which isn't necessarily a fault, but the things he said to me kind of made me think he was a little superficial.

Okay, I thought. Maybe I'm still wrong. I tried to tell myself that, but meh. It didn't really work. I sort of had this formulated opinion. If he redeemed himself in my eyes, I'd give him that much, but I was waiting for the time when he would do that.

It hasn't happened. In fact, today, Michael kind of became more of an egotistical moron in my eyes. He comes across very into himself...like he knows that he's attractive and wants to make sure everybody else knows it too. I don't know. So...today at another ward activity (holy crap, we have SO MANY of these, it's ridiculous...it keeps me entertained, at least) he was being really obnoxious and drawing all this attention to himself. He ended up standing right in front of me while we were congregated in a circle listening to announcements or something, and I had this cup of almost-finished hot chocolate in my hands. I looked at it, and then looked at his nice, clean jacket in front of me. I had to restrain myself from like, throwing it at him.

Wow. I'm so judgmental of some people sometimes. I'm kind of a terrible person. I just want to leave this disclaimer that I'm not judgmental of everybody. I'm really not. Most of the time, it's just those cocky people that I think come across as better than everybody that I can't tolerate....but even then, most of them don't end up really being like that.

And while writing this post, I realized who Michael reminds me of. There was this kid on student council with me last year who acted a lot like he does. Liked to draw attention to himself, attractive, cocky. Blech.

12 comments:

Kristina P. said...

I've been proving right more times than wrong.

This reminds me of a guy my good friend dated when we were in college. He was probably the best looking guy in the ward, was a model, etc. I totally thought he was going to be a jerk and break her heart. Not even close. One of the best guys I have known. He would have married her, but she decided to go on a mission, and he didn't wait. They weren't right for each other anyway.

Jules AF said...

I thought this girl in my program was a snot because of what she looked like and the fact that she's from Vermont.
And then, on the day after my birthday, she asked me how it went and wished me a happy belated birthday. And she found out it was my birthday because of facebook. So she paid close enough attention to do that, when some of my friends didn't even do that.
I felt bad.

Whitney Leigh said...

Does his name rhyme with Schmaylor Tit? bahaha

Jeff and Sarah said...

Oh, that wasn't obvious Whitney!!

Jeff and Sarah said...

And Kayleigh, when someone like that stands in front of you like you don't even exist you need to tap them on the shoulder and explain that even though they think they are far superior to you, you were actually stood there first and don't particularly care to stare at their rather large/ugly/peculiar (any adjective will do) butt. Oh I'm mad just listening to you talk about him. I have known way too many people like that. You just have to somehow put them in their place so you can feel satisfied!!

Kayleigh said...

Oh, Mom, I'm pretty sure that he wasn't standing in front of me to be mean. We were all in a circle, and he was just being obnoxious up until the point he was kind of in front of me.

Whitney - Yes. Haha.

Boob Nazi and Kristina - It's nice to know that sometimes people we think are going to be jerks don't end up being what we think they will.

Kiersten White said...

I was always a little too good at putting people like that in their place...and as I've gotten older, I've realized it's not really a good thing.

Dude wants the spotlight, let him have it. No one with any brains is going to be impressed by him, anyway ; )

AND--thought I'd tell you, you inspired a few lines in my newest book! The main character is a college freshman and she's thinking what she has that day all happy until she remembers her physics class. It was something like, "Physics was kicking her butt." Which is almost directly from one of your rants here!

Kayleigh said...

Kiersten....that is freakin' AWESOME. Haha. I think I did a really stupid clap when I saw that you'd written that, but I don't care. Haha. It made my day.

Anonymous said...

Haha oh boy, I read the student council part, and I knew immediately who you were talking about...

Very conspicuous, Whit!

Kayleigh said...

Haha, Darin. Good thing not more than like, three people from high school actually read this blog. Meh. Oh well.

Whitney Leigh said...

SCHMAYLOR TIT.

Whitney Leigh said...

Also- can I point out the unusually frequent amount of times you want to throw things at people? Does that still happen?