Attitude adjustment

I think I've been seeing people's flaws too much. Maybe I should open up more. I tend to get this way when the ol' social order has been established, though. Like before I know anyone, I play this game of who's cool and who's not, and whom I should hang out with, and whom I should make eye contact with when I'm talking, and so on. A lot of it's unconscious. (Unfortunately, a lot of it is conscious too.)

But then, once I get to know people and people get to know me, and there's some respect flowing back and forth, and I start feeling socially comfortable again, I start to think "hey, everyone's my friend, no worries" etc. The people that I don't like have sort of filtered themselves out of my company, while the people I do like have filtered themselves in. So I relax this whole social climbing nonsense and act like myself.

For example, two months ago, I would pick out every flaw of the American students here. (Maybe that's because I subconsciously indoctrinated myself not to like them because I didn't want to hang out with Americans all the time.) Now, for the most part, they're friends that I would very much enjoy traveling with. It could be the mere exposure effect (where I like them more just because I've seen them more). Or, it could just be that I'm relaxing my mind's little rules.

And who knows, maybe this is all working out for the best. Maybe if I was so open to everyone at the beginning, I'd make friends with the wrong people and then get all fed up in a couple months when I couldn't stand my "friends."

Probably not, though. I think it's just a social quirk of mine, and I should mostly drop it.