How you see me…

I was attempting to write the post How I became a fearless flirt and naturally I became distracted (I’m a shameless procrastinator, I’m the girl who rather than revising for my AS Levels decided to re-organise my wardrobe…twice!).

About 1 month prior to that I attended a Date Lab speed dating night with a friend and while I was diligently blogging away I received an email from the organiser with the below enclosed:

Upon reading the email I decided that I might as well apply (because who wants to write a blog post anyway, that and I am SO tired of online dating). I can’t honestly say that even if I am successful in being asked to appear on the show I’ll be able to bring myself to enter that Country House with the knowledge that my every move will be filmed but that’s another problem for a different day.

Anyway when filling in the form, as I’m sure comes as no surprise, there was a section in which I had to describe myself in less than 200 words. While sitting and scratching my brain for an embarrassingly prolonged amount of time I found that these 200 words just weren’t flowing out of me the way they ought to. I couldn’t help but chastise myself at how fruitless I’d been. I don’t really know anybody who enjoys answering these ‘describe yourself’ questions but it’s utterly ridiculous that I should find talking about myself so challenging. Who knows me better than me? And on top of that I proclaim to be a semi decent writer (here’s the part where you boost my ego by showering me with compliments and commenting at how much you enjoy my writing, I joke…unless you really do want to of course). Yet the blank page staring back at me contradicted those very sentiments.

So in accordance with my procrastinating ways I decided to get some much needed inspiration. And I sent the following to my nearest and dearest:

The responses I received were enlightening to say the least. There was some commonality with ‘fun’ and ‘bubbly’ being used most often. The majority of the responses I received were expected, some were less so. But what struck me the most was that one of the people I’d asked who has known me the least time used ‘creative’ as one of the 3 words to describe me. When I was a teenager I prided myself on my natural creativity. I sang, I danced, I played a couple of instruments (not particularly well, mind) and wrote song lyrics and poems (sadly I was never adept as an artist no matter how hard I wished my hands could create beauty). However the older I’ve gotten the less I’ve nurtured those aspects of myself that I cherished as a fresh faced (and tighter bodied) 16 year old. And I must say I found it astonishing that not only did someone still recognise that side of myself that I believe has lay dormant these 12 years, but that the person to acknowledge a pivotal part of my soul has not known me for a great amount of rime (in proportion to the others I asked).

It got me thinking more about the various aspects of our characters that shine through and who we allow to see the innermost workings of our beings. Or better yet who is perceptive enough to recognise aspects of ourselves that are not necessarily apparent to all. And which qualities are we not able to hide even though we may not want others to see certain sides of ourselves? Another thing I found fascinating is how these 3 descriptions that immediately come to mind when a particular person thinks about you may change the longer that you know each other for. Or potentially alter the more they think about you, as it is difficult to sum any one person up in only 3 words. In fact one friend in particular was unable to commit to just 3 descriptions and she offered me a rather overzealous 8 words claiming that once she started thinking about it, she was unable to stop as she couldn’t narrow it down.

Now I know this isn’t a particularly scientific method and asking those around you to only name 3 things, limits the description, and if I had allowed my friends more words (like the overzealous friend) I would have gotten a more rounded description (as unless you’re a sheet of paper of course you have more aspects to your personality than 3 features). But I guess I wanted to know the most obvious characteristics I exhibit and whether those qualities were the ones I wanted others to think, when they thought about me.

Now I can honestly say I was pleased with the responses I received (although maybe my particular friends and family have a propensity to only highlight the good) and some were pleasantly surprising, although I do definitely think of myself as ‘loyal’ and ‘kind’ those aren’t necessarily the traits I would expect to immediately come to mind for others.

I’m going to conclude this post with something of a challenge for you. My ask is that everyone reading this, go find out what others think of you. Ask them what are the 3 things they automatically think about you.

Does what they come up with match your own view of yourself? And if not why not? Do the 3 words match the you that you want them to see? You may be pleasantly surprised like I was (although if you’re not I take no responsibility).

Go on, I dare you!

N.B I wasn’t sure if I was going to but I’ve left the descriptions that people gave to me just in case you were interested, however have taken the names out in the interest of privacy.

Close family member – determined, feisty and strong

Very close friend – independent, factual, dreamer

Family member – niece, high flyer, very clever

Relatively new but quite close friend – bubbly, fiery, fun

Family member and Friend – Fun, cheeky

Friend – cheeky, fun, talkative

Friend – crazy, bubbly, funny

New(ish) extremely perceptive friend – confident, creative, ambitious

Male friend – funny, sexy, small ***I just wanted to highlight of all my friends trust the only male friend to use a physical word to describe me.

Friend – Extravagant, Confident, Passionate

Close family member / friend – spontaneous, ambitious, diva-esque

Close friend – exuberant, fun, adventurous