Newbie

For the first time in a VERY long time, I'm finding myself in a completely new circle of people. As in I have never seen or heard or facebooked with or read the blog of or met the daughter/friend/sister of or known in any other regard anyone else in this group. I am engaging in the delicate dance of building relationships with people I literally know nothing about.

It's strange, very strange.

While discussing various issues I find myself wanting to raise the much more relevant question who are you? I only have exterior clues to help answer my question. But a person is much more than his or her outward appearance. So I find myself listening intently to body language, intonation and most importantly to things that are not said. I feel like it's a puzzle, trying to piece together who these people are. A month from now will we be best friends laughing at my oh so crazy first impressions? Or years from now will we pass each other in the grocery store and do the whole "I know that face from somewhere" thing. Who knows.

As I wonder who these people REALLY are, I have the opportunity to ask the same questions of myself. Who am I? Who am I choosing to be with them? Yes, yes, we should all be authentic and genuine, but let's be honest everyone does not need to know the entire truth of who we all are on the first date! So as I'm gauging the responses of others, I'm watching my own as well. Sometimes I'd love to just be my unfiltered self without thinking so much about how much of all of me I want to show. Then again filtering isn't always a bad thing :)

I have the opportunity to get to know lots of new people all the time, but rarely so many new folks all at once. It's good to be reminded of what it's like to be the newbie. And it's good to get the opportunity to have to listen so hard to who people are.