Impressions

I've been noticing recently how much it can affect a person to be wondering (or assuming) what someone else thinks. Even if it turns out later that you're wrong about what the person thought or what his motivation was, it's hard to go back and undo the damage. Maybe somebody asked a question that went unanswered, or maybe a question was phrased in a clumsy way, or maybe there was an odd look on the person's face, or maybe the person tried to joke around and just couldn't pull it off as funny. Even if all those things were totally innocent (the piece of mail with the question was lost by the post office; the person grew up with different slang; somebody was coming down with stomach flu), it's far too easy to let those misunderstandings fester and then influence any further relationship.

Seems like it would be easiest to get things straightened out right at the start of the problem, rather than having to go back and repair the damage of the misunderstanding later.