Do you start people at ten, or do they need to earn it?

[possibletarian]

My best friend says I start people at ten and then they have to work real hard to work their way down. He starts people at zero, and they have to earn their way up. While five would be a healthy balance, I think it’s true that I tend to meet people and find them fascinating quickly. I love to meet strangers and I take road trips often where my focus is sitting at breweries and people watching. I engage in conversations with odd people, interesting, unique, funny, funky, kind, intimidating, scary, ridiculous people. I always leave feeling richer for having met them and most of my current friends I met this way. My friend says half of the people I’ve met could be thieves, killers, rapists, bullshitters. It took him six months of me showing up at his favorite sports bar for him to let me move up on the 1-10 scale. Lol! I knew we’d be friends since day one, he knew after six months.

What’s your approach? Why? Is this voluntary, or can you not help it?

I tend to simply take people as they come, I'm more interested in who they think they are,  than who I think they are. I have always liked slightly dysfunctional people, maybe because at heart there is always some mess in everyone's life. I'm more at peace with people who have learnt to be at peace with themselves, people who know they are far from perfect, but have made peace with the knowledge of that, there's a certain amount of serenity that comes from such people.

I think once of the biggest moments in my life was when I learnt that it's okay for other people to have different opinions on things, that them being different or thinking differently didn't impact on who I am,  I learnt to listen rather than interrupt.  The strange people I meet as I move around don't bother me, they are only fleeting and even if they are bullshitting it does not matter, they have entertained me at least. 

Sometimes there are people, who for some reason remain in your heart and you hope one day to meet again, There are people you meet only once who never leave your thoughts, and there are people who you had the courage to ask for a number, and remain friends..or better. I don't score (at least not consciously) we all do judge, even though we are unaware, but judgement need not always be a negative, we can look at a person and wish for them to be more in our lives.


All in all I find people hard not to love, with all their idiosyncrasy's I remember to them I am that person they have just met and i endeavour to make that meeting as pleasant as possible.
I don't think we can help it, just as others are simply who they are, so are we who we are.