Meta-Recognizing Myself Through Others' Eyes
To strangers, cheerful and easygoing. To colleagues, firm standards and a solid core. And to the people I truly love — talkative, expressive, with zero intention of hiding it. Probably all of these are me.
When I meet people out in the world, most of them see me as quite a cheerful person.
I laugh easily, get close to people quickly, and let most things slide, so my first impression is generally soft around the edges.
In celebrity terms, something like the actor Go Kyung-pyo, I suppose.
I wasn't unpopular in university.
Still not, actually. Heh.
I'm fairly sociable, and I don't sharpen my edges at people I've just met. So from the outside, I think I just look like a bright, comfortable person.
But talk with me a little longer — or especially, work with me — and people start to see me differently.
They seem to sense that my standards are clearer than expected, that I don't waver easily, and that on the things that matter there's a rather solid core.
I can laugh things off in daily life — but not in work.
On what must be done, why it must be done, and to what level it must be taken, I'm quite precise. Once I've judged something necessary, I dig to the end, and when I see a problem I can't walk past it.
So the impression of me at first meeting and the impression after working with me can differ quite a bit.
And here's the funny part — in friendships and romantic relationships, an entirely different person comes out.
Especially in front of someone I truly love, I become talkative.
I express more, and I make it enormously obvious that I like them.
Rather than hiding feelings and acting weighty, I'm the type who says I like you when I like you, says I miss you when I miss you, and shows interest with my whole body when I'm interested.
Come to think of it, I seem to become a slightly different person depending on the distance of the relationship.
To someone I've just met: cheerful and easygoing.
To someone I work with: clear standards and a solid core.
And to someone I truly love: talkative, expressive, with zero intention of hiding how much I like them.
Probably all of these are me.
Flexible on the outside, something quite solid at the center, and at the innermost layer — unexpectedly, a person of very many expressions.
And every piece I've written is also my life itself,
and yes — they are real goals that will come true in time.