With certain people, you don't worry as much about what you say. Close friends and family know your weird quirks and how you talk (and therefore, hopefully, what you truly mean), but when you run into new people, there is no limits to the amount of times you replay every facet and nuance of the interaction. Every word choice, every smile, every joke, or touch becomes worthy of the kind of self-directed meta-analysis usually reserved for episodes of 'Community'. Worse are the encounters with people in that special circle of hell - former classmates or workmates. You exchange the awkward hugs, the stilted conversational trades, and then spend the next four hours either worrying like nobody's business about it, or stalking them on social media to make sure they haven't mentioned the world's most awkward social interaction, in your eyes at least, ensuring another evening spent over-considering everything.
9. Worrying About First Impressions To New People
Everyone likes to make a first impression; or at least most people. It's hard to consider anyone who actually thinks that acting like a buffoon, being insulting, and generally not a nice person is a good way to go about things. However, no matter how much sort of desire to make a good first impression you might have, over-thinkers have it generally a hundred times worse as they consider every single potential scenario for disaster and how to avoid it all costs. They might shower several times, brush their teeth several times, spend hours on an outfit, work on potential social cues and worry, worry, worry about anything and everything that might come up. Fortunately, it usually goes well, but not thanks to anything they've planned; over-thinkers tend to forget that other people are generally nice, good human beings and like to give good first impressions too. Relax. You did good, Over-Thinker.
