A person’s first impression is their best behavior. Their fifth impression is the real one.

First meetings are managed. Everybody is a little better than average at the start, because the effort is worth it and the information is thin. By the fifth time the performance is too expensive to keep up and the habits come through. That is not a trick anybody is playing on you, it is the normal shape of getting to know somebody.

Hold off on your verdicts for a few more meetings this week, for people you liked and people you did not. Give the quiet one another go, and be slower to trust the one who dazzled you. And keep being whatever you were on your own first meeting.