the creepy guy

There's that game you play when you're bored and sitting in traffic staring at the pedestrians or other drivers - the game where you make up stories about them, about what they're doing, maybe their life story if it's an exceptionally long traffic light.

The game involves judgements based entirely on nonverbal communication, from their clothing to the specific twinkle in their eyes, or lack of, to hand gestures and how high they hold their head. First impressions are vital, we're told.

When I was in college I took a class called Communication & Culture. One of the first days of the semester we did an activity. We had to pair up with someone in the class we didn't know. I was a senior, and most of the class were freshman and sophomores, so it was easy for me... I knew about 2 other people. We couldn't talk to the other person. We had a list of questions, and we had to sit and look at each other and answer questions. It was somewhat awkward, trying to analyze someone while they were staring at you, doing the same thing.

The questions were things like:
What year in school is this person?
Does s/he drink?
Is s/he religious?
Is s/he a commuter or resident?

Etc.

Things that you couldn't know about someone. I sat and looked at the blonde haired girl across from me. I thought (and wrote on my answer sheet):
-Freshman
-Has had a drink on occassion, and has friends that drink, but is still cautios about it due to her religious background - probably involved in church youth group
-Religious - protestant, but probably not 100% into her religion, willing to explore others, may end up not being religious at all
-She's from a suburb of the city, but lives on campus. Even though her parents were relunctant to let her and she goes home most weekends and sometimes during the week.

Etc.

I elaborated like that on every question. After a few minutes we gave each other our answers. I totally freaked out my partner, because I painted a 100% accurate picture of her and she didn't do or say anything. I saw about 1/2 of it in her eyes. The rest I picked up from clothing, the way she sat, etc. I don't remember what the exact point of the exercise was, either to show us how some things have specific meanings in our culture, or to show us not to judge on first impressions. Either way, I discovered I'm really good at reading people. Something I had expected simply from my experience with people up to that point. When I meet you, I get an instant vibe about you. I don't know if it's Aura, Karma, The Force, or what... but I know instantly if you're good or bad. Just like Santa.

There's a new guy at work. He's been around awhile now. My instant "reading" of him was that I'm going to see his neighbors on the news talking about he was "a nice guy", "quiet", "a good neighbor"...you know, right after he's done something psycho. The thing is, this guy has been nothing but nice to anyone. He's picking up the job quick. He's polite. He's done absolutely nothing suspicious. I have no reason to think poorly of him, other than the weird vibe I get from him. It's not simply the vibe of playing too much D&D and online gaming, although that is part of it, it's a bad karma kind of vibe. If I wasn't such an abnormally good judge of character, I would just shake it off as a bad first impression. But I get the vibe every time I'm around him. Everyone else loves him, why wouldn't they, he's a nice guy who does his job. I really hope my karma-sense is just off with this guy.