Some people decide who you are after one conversation. Let them be wrong. It costs you nothing.

First impressions get filed fast and then defended, often on evidence as thin as one awkward exchange. You cannot chase every filed copy of yourself around and correct it, and the attempt reads as exactly the thing you are trying to disprove. Someone else’s inaccurate summary of you sits in their head and does nothing to your actual life unless you start arguing with it.

Let one wrong impression stand this week without campaigning against it. Spend that energy on the people who are paying attention over time. Those are the only verdicts that end up mattering, and they are based on months rather than minutes.