Do you size people up when you meet them?

I thought it was normal, or at least quite common to have a "first impression" of someone - whether that's accurate or not. Just the expression or concept of first impressions must mean it's a thing?

Although to be honest my first impression of how the OP was worded was that it might be a journo?

I think you're completely misunderstanding my point. It's more about being able to tell new money from old money. FWIW I'm disabled myself and we have a very old Skoda estate. It's not always about earnings, more about taste and aspirations.

Nonsense. You've clearly formed an opinion on me based on a few posts and we haven't even met. Would you respond to a good friend with a snippy 'thank you very much?' That response is based on an opinion, whether you realise it or not.

Yes but while I’m pretty good at judging ‘type’ of person, I’m bad at judging worth of person - I give them quite a while to settle my opinion as some of my best friends were people who instantly annoyed me on meeting them!

@MoMhathair I know what forming an opinion is thank you very much. The same applies, it never occurred to me to form an opinion on the lady at KIA! I used the 'funny' example as occasionally I'll meet someone who is particularly funny. Then I'll form an opinion that they're funny but on a day to day basis, I don't form ANY opinion on anyone I meet. I don't just mean at the beginning either, I can often know someone for years without forming an opinion on them.

@Louisetheroux Yep, same here!

@ScouserInExile Judging someone on what car they drive is shocking behaviour. The car someone drives is dependent on earnings most of the time ffs! The car I drive (new KIA Sportage) is a Motability car and is entirely chosen for the space it has for my mobility scooter not my bloody personality! And there's 60,000+ Motability cars on the road in the UK

TBH I'd find it quite odd if someone formed no opinion at all of me - I'd think I was pretty bland and forgettable!

The question wasn't about judging, it was about forming an opinion. Thinking that someone is funny counts as 'sizing someone up' to me - as in, you are a normal human reacting to your environment. Forming an opinion doesn't automatically mean you're thinking good or bad things, you're just having thoughts, which to me seems fairly standard for a person!

I do it too, with me it's based on how they dress, nothing to do with that whole "resting bitch face", not bothered about that in the least.
Yes, I know it's horrible, it is shallow, but don't most people do it? You can tell a lot from how people dress. Also what car they drive. You can guess what their aspirations are and what their house will be like.

Oh 100% I do judge. Based on how they greet me, what they're doing, what they're wearing etc. It's natural to me! For example if I meet someone new at work, who doesn't smile when I greet them, looks unclean or is smelly - I'm probably going to make a negative judgement about how friendly they are and that we might not get along.

However I do tend to hold full judgement until I've properly spoken to them / spent time with them - first impressions count but you never know if you've caught someone on the worst day of their life and they're going through things. If the judgement is the same multiple meetings in it'll stick!

@MoMhathair Correct. It's not an intentional 'I must not judge people' ethos I just naturally don't form any judgement. If for example I meet someone and they are particularly very funny I'll think "Wow he/she is funny!" but no, it naturally doesn't cross my mind to form an opinion.
To give an example, I dropped my car off at Kia for it's service this morning and was chatting to the lady at the service desk. Looking back, it never crossed my mind to think anything good or bad about her. I chatted, made a joke about how I'd spilled my cup of tea on my top and left. Never occurred to me to judge her in any way at all.

I really try not to do this as I have completed some unconscious bias training at work but in reality I think we all do it or have done it at one time or another.

But if we do this i.e. sizing people up and making assumptions before we get to know them properly it informs our interactions, decisions, actions, behaviours etc etc.

Sometimes we are right and sometimes we are wrong. The key thing to know is to be aware of it and question or check yourself (am I just thinking like this or feeling like this about them because they remind me of X, look like a Y, sound like Z or because I heard something bad about them and check yourself and sometimes you can be very pleasantly surprised.

I have to say though I would judge anyone rather harshly who thinks they can always accurately read anyone else on first impressions as rather a simple soul who has never heard of confirmation bias.

I probably used to judge or notice people a lot more when I was younger - being a teenager/school does that to you and it takes you a few years to get over that level of "noticing" and judgement that younger people have. It was largely down to my own insecurity.

I've got to the stage in my 40s where I genuinely care very little about what strangers think of me and find myself far less judgemental of others.

Same!!

The arrogance! Of course you're not always right! Nobody is ffs.

I've had someone say that about me, that they got a negative vibe from me and that they're "always right" when in fact, they couldn't be more wrong. I'm not a perfect saint by any stretch but I'm not a bad person in the slightest.

Not really, I'm sure my brain does 101 calculations that I'm not conscious of but it's only when I have met people a few times that I start to form any opinion either way. And some people take far longer to reveal themselves.

Most times I couldn't tell you a single thing about people who I've been on a train with on the way to work and even walk past people I do know in the street half the time unless they attract my attention.

Are you seriously telling me that you interact with people and don't have one single thought about them???

Everyone does. I get vibes off people and I’m always right ! Don’t care what they wear hiw they look etc

I think everyone does and there is not much you can do about it. I genuinely think I do it more on what people say than how they dress, but thats probably not entirely true. I do tend to take people at face value at first. I think it tends to be over time that i pick up little things they say and form more of an opinion.

@MoMhathair the only way to avoid 'sizing people up' is to completely ignore them

Absolute nonsense! As I said above, by default I never form opinions on anyone unless forced to by their behaviour- good or bad.

I have a severe allergy to all make up (even hypoallergenic make up burns my skin) and I'm naturally light blonde with skin so fair I practically glow in the dark, so without make up I look ROUGH! No matter how nicely I have my hair and how smartly I dress, I still look rough thanks to my skin. It genuinely breaks my heart to think that people are seeing me and assuming I'm 'rough' without even interacting with me. It certainly explains why security guards always follow me, despite never giving any of them any reason to.

No wonder anxiety is so prevalent these days.

Wow. This made me gasp 😧 The level of judgement my god. Do you genuinely not see what is wrong with this? You're making massive assumptions based on how somebody looks! So if somebody has a natural resting bitch face but is actually a lovely, jolly & kind person, you're saying you see their resting bitch face and assume they're miserable?!

Jesus fucking Christ

No not at all. I naturally never form opinions on anyone unless they force me to by their behaviour. In my last job I was there 4.5 years before I realised I hadn't formed opinions on any of my colleagues