First Impresssions Are Everything

I mentioned in my Instagram and Twitter post this week that “people will treat you how you let them” with an attached picture. I thought this was an excellent theme for this week’s blog as there seems to be a few recurring events that happened twice this week, which is a new record for the time frame. I am quite sure that only those who are thoughtful, kind and mature will read this blog and I am doubtful that this blog will have an impact on anyone who requires growth, but writing this was cathartic nevertheless. I enjoy reflecting on my screening processes that I’ve created with my experiences and psychology background and it is therapeutic to organize and write these ideas outside of myself. I hope my readers get something out of this as well.

Disrespecting My Time

When you are late, you are setting back my schedule. This is reflected onto the next appointments or in my personal life, which is already limited in terms of timing due to my lack of free time for myself by my own doing. When you are late without any good reason, it shows me that you do not respect me or my time. Now, I am not an unreasonable person and I do understand that sometimes circumstances warrant tardiness, but I do have an expectation that this is communicated with me well before arrival so that I can make a plan and informed decision as to whether I want to take another client, have time to run an errand or reschedule our appointment. If this level of effort is exercised on your part, I have no problem rewarding that behaviour with patience as long as time permits.

However, if lateness becomes habitual or incrementally longer with time, this shows me that this is a part of who you are and time management is not a strength of yours. In this case, I will have to make a decision whether I choose to keep you as a client and book your appointments accordingly (which is sometimes what I do for those who openly communicate with me) or let you go if I feel you do not have respect for my life. If I am running behind schedule I try to give at least 1 hour notice with an overestimation of timing (at most, 10-15 minutes behind) to give you the information to make an informed decision as to whether the timing will still work for your schedule. If you decide to cancel, I take full responsibility for my tardiness and I will apologize. I truly expect the same in return if you are late.

I mentioned in my Twitter & Instagram post this week that people will treat you the way you allow them to. And this has been proven over and over again, despite my attempt to disprove this theory. Typically, I will cancel people last minute if they are not openly communicating their lateness with me but sometimes I feel like I may have a positive impact if I lecture them. This week, I had two of these incidents.

Earlier last week, I told the person to delay their arrival time by 10 minutes as I was running a little bit behind. They told me that there was no problem as they were already behind schedule. 10 minutes after the hour, they mentioned to me that they would be at least 30 minutes longer because they didn’t time their commute properly. Great, they communicated this with me, however they should have said something earlier when they knew their commute time was a lot longer than anticipated. At 35 minutes after the hour, I mentioned to them that we would have to shorten the session because I had appointments afterwards and he decided to cancel last minute because he wouldn’t get his whole time. To me, that was disrespectful because he didn’t consider that I moved around my schedule to accommodate him the day before and that he didn’t accept responsibility for his poor planning. Instead, I felt like he was “punishing” me for putting me in the predicament of attempting to accommodate him and respect the schedule of the next person. Additionally, he attempted to blame me because he said I was 10 minutes behind. I kindly explained that I told him I was 10 minutes behind, not 35 minutes as he was already, and that also he poorly planned his commute time so he would have been late regardless. Ive seen adults act like overgrown toddlers before and this situation was no different. “Ok bye” was their response for speaking logic. I have no problem dismissing them forever. This was not our first time meeting, and he has cancelled a 90 minute appointment an hour before previously due to poor planning, but I was nice enough to give them a second chance by also, what I thought, was setting a boundary. I told them to please refrain from cancelling last minute, especially when it is a 90 minute appointment. His excuse was that he has memory problems due to multiple concussions (not my problem). This is why I have very little room to deal with these types of conflicts. When a person shows you a side of them, it is typically true that this is who they are foundationally as a person and there is no changing this. This speaks to me that this person will create negative feelings of stress and resentment in the future, which is not something I want in my life, in my space and in my day. I will mention the second person in the next topic.

Old Habits Die Hard

As I mentioned, the bad habits of a person are usually displayed right away (actions speak louder than words for a reason) and it’s important to listen to these actions with anyone that you encounter. Typically, I make no attempt to lecture people on where they go wrong because usually they’re old enough that they’ve had their whole life up to this point to learn thoughtfulness. You either have it or you don’t.

In addition to lack of taking accountability and ownership for their mistakes, it is clear that these people do not look inwards or self reflect. It is my theory that these people live in survival mode where they may experience trauma from constantly being blamed in childhood or they’ve been spoiled to the point where they never do anything wrong. This doesn’t excuse the behaviour, just merely could explain it.

When people downplay their role in their tardiness (traffic was bad, meeting went longer than expected, it wasn’t my fault), it shows a childish and self-centred quality by eliminating their accountability and ability to make informed decisions by thinking about how circumstances affect my schedule. I get it, these are perfectly legitimate excuses. However, it’s about using critical thinking and communicating this with me. In the two examples above, you could set your GPS to obtain an approximation of commute time when I provide you with my address and again at least a half an hour before you need to depart from your destination to account for traffic. In terms of meetings running late, you can use your critical thinking to discern how far into discussion you are or historical experiences from these types of meetings to discern whether things will run later and either communicate this with me well in advance or book a later appointment slot to account for any unforeseen delays. When you are saying, “it’s not my fault”, it means that you’re not capable of time management and taking autonomy over your life and, in that case, we are not a great fit.

This week I had someone booked for a longer session at the end of my day. They mentioned they would be 10 minutes late, which was fine. But then after 10 minutes, they said they would be an additional 20. In my opinion, I believed that there was two options: they either weren’t going to show up or they were stringing me along by telling me they were going to only be 10 minutes late when, in fact, they would have been 30 minutes total. Delaying communication of the inevitable timing will not make me forget the original start time nor will it make you earlier or make it seem like I was only waiting 20 minutes when I was waiting 30 minutes. It will, however, inspire me to cancel the appointment to go outside and live my life.

This person was kind enough to apologize and take accountability as well as offer to compensate me for the missed time (as well as cut the session short with payment) but I politely declined this request. It is not about the money to me and you cannot buy my respect. It is about treating me the way I deserve to and the way I expect to be treated. My time is already so limited and I only want to be surrounded by positive energy. I do not want to miss out on parts of my life because of your lack of respect for my life. When you are late, you are already setting a negative tone where I no longer want you in my space. I truly don’t care how much you’re willing to “pay” to compensate me. This is not what’s important to me. Remember: my love language is acts of service. You can read about my earlier blog about love languages here

Disrespect My Boundaries

This is an obvious. When a person doesn’t attempt to read my website and asks for services I do not offer at first point of contact, it is clear that they do not respect me or see me as a human but rather a tool to obtain what they want or see what they can take. In addition, I do not mind accommodating special requests, such as outfit requests, but when a person becomes demanding when we haven’t met, it makes me feel very uneasy. I have had people message me and ask for a whole list of how they want the session to go, minute by minute, or even how they want me dressed from head to toe. This is a great insight into how difficult, demanding and dominating this person may be and this is not a great fit for me. If we get to know each other, I have no problem accommodating your special requests because it shows me that it’s coming from a place of shared vulnerability, not expectations.

Another indication of a person who disrespects my boundaries are those who attempt to make conversation with me without being clear on their intentions. Some people love to share their thoughts and feedback on my blogs, which I really appreciate because it shows they’re taking time to read my thoughts and share their own. Even if they’ve never met me. And also they show me they’re patient with my responses as sometimes I don’t respond right away. But then I have others who text me to just make causal conversation with me or attempt to use trickery in order to get me to reply. They attempt to make it seem like they’re interested in  booking an appointment with me when they’re attempting to fulfil a level of loneliness or use my responses for masturbation material. My favourites and most obvious is when a person asks me my toe nail colour.

Cancelling Last Minute

Things come up and I am a very understanding person. I’ve had people who I know well cancel last minute due to personal circumstances and this is never an issue for me. I’ve even had to cancel my day because of events in my life, but this is very rare. However, upon first meeting sometimes this is not a good first impression, depending on how this cancellation is communicated. When a person cancels without any basic explanation, apology, accountability, recognition for the impact on me and/or offer compensation (usually only for first time appointments), it indicates to me that they don’t respect me and this is not the type of person who would fit into my life. I’ve had a person attempt to contact me these last few months when they cancelled an hour before their appointment by saying, “I’ll no longer be able to make my appointment. Something came up.” This is an example of a poor explanation and communication, lack of accountability, no apology and I will never see this person, even with financial compensation.

In summary, it is important to be thoughtful of any person providing a service because first impressions are important. Those who provide excellent services will have no shortage of clientele and not having access to these people due to displaying disrespectful and thoughtless behaviours is on you entirely. Explain, apologize, accept responsibility, recognizing the potential impact on the provider and offering compensation shows maturity and growth. Practicing these behaviours will increase the potential of a second chance with the provider. Reasonable providers will always understand that life happens and it’s always better to over-explain than under-explain when it comes to first impressions. Do your best to balance your life with respecting other people and you will get further in life.