Do you size people up when you meet them?

I do.
By the way they stand, the way they speak, eye contact or lack of it, sometimes the way they’re dressed but not always.
I think it’s natural and general curiosity most of the time.
If they say something completely vile within the first 15 minutes, it turns from an opinion to a judgement.
I’ve been right and wrong many times.

Yes, it's human nature and hard-wired into us to sum people up when we meet them. We are, on a very basic level, assessing a number of things: are they safe, are we attracted to them (is the person a potential mate), are they friendly or hostile. Are they rivals to us - do they present a threat in any way.

We are animals after all - and I believe we make fundamental judgements about people before words have been exchanged

You're either lying, or there's something wrong with you. It's human instinct to make first impressions, and it's essential for survival (or it would have been in the past anyway - but instincts stay with us).

You must have opinions about your colleagues. You must have some you like more or less than others.

If you feel that flat about them then there's something not right.

I think the ability to form an impression of people when you first meet them is an important life skill. It's not a negative at all.

I absolutely do and am usually correct

A girl I work with actually wears a badge that says, "I'm nicer than my face looks!"
She is nice and personally I think her face is nice too but this thread just made me think of her!

Marina Hyde and Richard Osman’s The Rest is Entertainment podcast recently talked about a poll that correlated whether individuals would prefer to be a Traitor or a Faithful on the tv series Traitors. Those who said they’d prefer to be a traitor were far more likely to vote Tory than those who said they’d prefer to be faithful, who were overwhelmingly Labour voters.

And I agree with you, it’s not difficult to tell by appearance. I moved to a big, deeply Tory village in a safe Tory constituency in 2012, and when I ordered the Guardian at the shop/PO within days of our arrival, the postmaster jokily said to me, ‘Do you want an introduction to the only other four Guardian-reading households in the village?’ I said, ‘Give me a chance to see if I can identify them’, and within a couple of weeks, I had identified two of them.

Everyone, consciously or unconsciously, does this. Literally everyone. We also all have biases and prejudices, sometimes very subtle ones and sometimes bigger, that we aren't even aware of and which feed into our judgements.

People often say 'Trust your gut feeling' about someone. Sometimes, that's good advice because we've actually picked up unconsciously on genuine signals. But sometimes, it's awful advice, because 'gut feelings' are also formed partly by those unconscious biases and prejudices, rather than an ability to actually read people.

I do. But, I am often wrong so try keep that in mind!
I've also had it said to me, by more than one person, I didn't like you when we first met- but now I love you. They can never give a reason of what I did wrong to start with. Which is quite hurtful tbh and has hapoened all my life!

I met my closest friend over thirty years ago through her DBs. I thought she was vile. She had a reputation for being tough and a bully. I couldn't have been more wrong, not only that, there were reasons for her behaviour.
I think it's human nature but don't think that first impression is always correct.

(Personally, I can’t tell who someone voted for just by their appearance🤣)

But, there is such thing as ‘first impression bias’ we, as humans, do tend to make immediate judgements on appearances.

Again, not quite what I meant, it's more in regard to people being able to tell your social class.
Living in a very posh, upwardly mobile area it's really easy to tell new money/old money/academia, and I think that is how a lot of us are judged, still. We are not a classless society, however much we might like to think it.
Even dog breeds have a social class.

I form first impressions but I try to keep an open mind as they are often wrong.

I think I am a really good judge of character. I am a natural people watcher and I am fascinated by people and their choices. DH is a pretty good at sizing people up too. I have an excellent BS detector.

I like to confuse school Mums with what type of person I am. I dress in cheap clothes, wear a lot of supermarket gym wear and live in a deprived northern town and available during the day for school assemblies so look poor and unemployed. However, people are surprised that I have a "posher" accent than they are expecting as I grew up in the South, I have a well paid flexible job that allows me to do the school run and drive a new company car. I'm not really bothered about being judged either way.

Of course I make a judgement. It’s interesting to meet new people, and I’m always on the lookout for new potential kindred spirits. While I’m interested in how people self-present, too, I’m generally more interested in what they say — are they clever, funny, observant, well-informed? Reserved or putting it all out there? Do they talk well? Do they do something interesting for a living and are they interesting about it? Do I want the conversation to continue?

And obviously I’ve been wrong. Not often, but sometimes. I didn’t much like someone who has been a close friend since the 90s the first time I met her. I only realised later on that she was stressed about our surroundings (as was I. Two poor kids newly at an elite university) and was performing a more gung-ho All-American version of herself, while, according to another friend from that era, I was giving off chippy ‘Be more interesting, rich people’ vibes and was mysteriously late to everything…😀

@Upstartled

I thought that said "swingers" and it made me chuckle! FWIW I'd imagine they'd be nude, or a tit out at least.

What do swing voters look like?

We all do it.

Also I know this is changing the subject slightly but my dog has great intuition when it comes to people. He somehow can immediately detect which people are good / kind and is very nice to them, it's crazy!

Everyone does it. But not at a glance, you need to engage with the person to form a judgement.

Same as @Crazybaby123 we have two cars- a 20 year old BMW and a new Tesla, I look terrible on the school run but polished when the situation requires it. However that doesn't stop me forming an opinion of others on first meeting them. This will of course then be confirmed or rejected after more meetings, conversations and time in general.

@Costcolover you did make a judgement. You judged, probably correctly, that she would find your joke about spilling your tea mildly amusing, and that you could enjoy some levity in an otherwise mundane task. She had obviously been friendly enough for you to judge that this interaction was appropriate.

If you’d arrived at the Kia garage and there’d been no one at reception, and a mechanic had called gruffly through from the workshop “just leave your keys in the desk love”, then turned away, you wouldn’t have stopped to make a joke about spilling your tea. You’d have made a judgement of the mechanic and the situation, and realised it wasn’t really appropriate.

We form opinions on people all the time, subconsciously. We’re not necessarily deciding if we want to marry them, or if they’re a kind person, or clever, or whatever. But we’re still forming opinions.

I actually have two cars, one is a right old banger, work 1600 quid, the other is a top of the range audi. I also can be dressed in sliders, socks and a crumpled old jumper one day with no makeup to do the school run, the next day I might be going to the office with my Mulberry bag, Jaeger dress and Hobbs heels. I actually do find people are nicer to me when I am wearing the old clothes and driving the old car, people are willing to give me a hand and want to actively help. I have had people offering to helo with me paying for my shopping and one guy even offered to pay for my kids lunch when I have gone out looking a bit dishevelled. When i am dressed up I find people are not as nice and unless they are people dressed in a similar way and seem to think I am part of their club. It is interesting how people react to different sorts of peoples dress and car... if you saw me on my dress down days you could never ever guess what I do for a living and I quite like that.

It's a case of what is "rough". To me, rough is white trainers, jog pants, black North Face jacket. But I've been followed by security guards simply for having long hennaed hair and wearing hippy clothes. It's very subjective and almost meaningless.

We can’t entirely stop doing this as it’s part of our survival instinct. If you’re walking alone after dark, I bet you’re aware of who’s walking behind you and making a snap judgement about whether they’re a potential threat.

We can often teach ourselves to ignore our basic survival instinct, however this probably isn’t a good idea. But we should question our prejudices when we’re safe and have time. E.g. “why do I dislike my new colleague? Did she actually say or do anything, or could it be that she looks and sounds rather like Jenna, who bullied me at school”?

You say you don't form opinions but then say that there is a particular way of looking that is "rough" which explains why a security guard's attention would be drawn 🤔