Real Kato Blog: How (Not) To Impress Me

When I first meet people, I usually like them. It's when they try to impress me that I get turned off.

I don't think I'm a particularly imposing or intimidating person. I mean, I'm not very big, I don't bully people around, and I usually smile a lot.

It's true that these days I have a level of self-confidence that I did not have when I was younger. So I don't get intimidated by other people so much, even beautiful women. Maybe that kind of confidence is intimidating to some people. But I try to be disarming and friendly, especially when meeting strangers, because I would rather make someone like me than fear me. And usually that works.

Sometimes, though, I meet people who are determined to make me respect them, by telling me about all of their accomplishments and about how they've made such great decisions in life. I don't like when this happens. How am I supposed to react? Am I supposed to gush over how great they are? Or is the idea to play some sort of one-upmanship game? I will usually give people the benefit of the doubt at first. I'll say "oh, wow!" and act impressed for the first few boasts. But after a while, that will devolve into "oh, that's interesting" and then just "mm hmm". If you get to "mm hmm" with me, it means I've become tired of your self-promotion.

The people who do impress me are the ones who are just honestly themselves, warts and all. I love self-deprecating humor. I love when people tell me a story about something embarrassing or dumb that they did. When that happens, then I can tell an embarrassing story of my own, and we can share a laugh about how silly life is. That's what it should be about, after all: sharing. We shouldn't try to compete with each other if we're trying to start a friendship. Women seem to understand this better than men do; I think that's why I have so many more female friends than male friends.

It's gotten to a point where I think I've got a good litmus test for compatibility with people. If you tell me a self-deprecating story within the first ten minutes of meeting me, I'm probably going to like you. If you tell me a self-aggrandizing story instead, I'm probably not going to like you.

Here's a shout-out to a couple of people that did make a good first impression on me this weekend (though they will probably never see this article, as they don't strike me as the blog-reading type): Geovanna and Tatiana. Woot!

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