My ego likes to tell me that I’m a terrific judge of character, or that I have good instincts about people. But the reality is that I often “thin-slice” judge people, based on a few clues, and then later find out I was dead wrong.

One of my favorite things in the world is to be dead wrong about somebody in my first impression of them. This happens more than I would care to admit. My ego likes to tell me that I’m a terrific judge of character, or that I have good instincts about people. But the reality is that I often “thin-slice” judge people, based on a few clues, and then later find out I was dead wrong. Misjudgment can happen in several different ways. That beautiful, poetic-looking, soft-natured, intellectual man whom I fell in love with at first sight? Turned out he was a withholding bully, and actually not even very smart. (It was just a beard and the soulful eyes that fooled me!) But I’ve also made misjudgments the other way. That bottle blonde in the corner with the pink dress and the annoying, high-pitched voice? Turns out she was a federal judge. And later became one of my dearest, most respected friends. I love being wrong about people. Tell us about a time that you were.

– Liz Gilbert

Prompt:

Write about a time where you were dead wrong about someone.

Anne Francey

Location: Saratoga Springs, NY
About: I am an artist and like to use chance in my work. It often reveals something that was there all along but had not taken shape. This prompt about picking a random sentence from a book did just that.
Age: 64

It is the story of the wealthy Belgian heir who hired me as an interpreter when I was a young artist in NY in the 1980’s.

I spent a week with him, translating from French to English and vice-versa. He had come to NY to prepare the way for his father to join him as they intended to sell some of the family old European Masters painting collection. I had time to observe him, it was amusing. I attributed his odd clothing assortment, the old Dutch painting tucked directly in his briefcase with just a tissue paper wrapping, his dirty nails, wad of cash in his breast pocket instead of credit card, and lack of interest in fancy food, to the eccentricities and entitlement of the wealthy. The Concord menu from his flight to NY that he showed me on the first day, gold embossed on heavy paper? He must have noticed the paint in my hair and wanted to impress me, just for the plaisir des yeux, with something I could never afford. The lunches we shared each day at modest diners? He was most likely tired of the white table clothes restaurants with the stifling etiquette. The dirty nails? Just sand. He had told me that he had just come back from a vacation on the Caribbean.

But as days went by, something was making me increasingly uneasy: no decision was ever taken without first calling the father back in Belgium. Every transaction was a triangular interaction. We had to contact an art dealer to prepare the sale of the collection, rent a short term furnished apartment overlooking Central Park for his father’s visit, and every time, the father was called. My rich heir was totally under the dominion of papa. I was telling myself all kinds of stories about this strange relationship, talking about it each night with my boyfriend. I got a little obsessed with the whole situation, got an intense head cold and forgot my fancy leather jacket in a cab. I even contemplated secretly recording my days with the wealthy Belgian, for fun and the sake of storytelling. This was so fascinating! On the last day, he paid me, cash, and that was that. I could go back to my studio and paint without worrying about next month’s rent.

A few days later, I received a phone call from the FBI. Could they come and see me? Yes. Within a few minutes, two agents had climbed the stairs to my Lower East Side studio. They showed me a picture: did I know this man? Indeed, it was my Belgian heir! But didn’t this look like a mug shot? It was. My Belgian eccentric was part of an international gang of art thieves, most likely a lowly sent in advance to test the place, not wealthy at all. Papa on the phone was the head of the organization, a very smart and dangerous man, the FBI agent told me (his icy voice on the phone did give me the chills when I had spoken with him), and the Dutch paintings had been stolen in an armed robbery in a gallery in Zürich a few days before I started working for him. An FBI led helicopter operation had captured the whole gang in the same Central Park apartment that I had helped my man rent through my wonderful interpreting skills! The agents, after careful questioning, realized quickly that I was just a naive young Swiss in NY and left.

The next day, sobered, I was riding the subway, shaking a little bit in retrospect with the idea that I had almost recorded this dangerous man. What would have happened if he had found out? Next to me, someone was reading the NY Post. One of the headlines caught my attention. It read: “International art thieves gang caught in Central Park following an armed robbery in Zürich.

A true story!

Dylan Brooks

Location: North Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
About: I'm a 27 y/o Canadian in practice; orbiting the planet of free form poetry/prose. What was once love letters is now a full-time creative writing passion, inspired mostly by self reflection and an outward connection to world around us. I have written nine poems prompted by The Isolation Journals project, and it's honestly THE closest I've felt to a community of artists. This has been a journey and the train won't stop here, so until it jumps the tracks, I'm grateful to Suleika and the Team for such a wonderful ride. Thank you!
Age: 27

a letter to the lion dressed in all black. i can’t believe four years have passed since our last meaningful chat.

the one about missed connections and the monkey on your back.

our time was sweet but brief and most definitely under attack –

still i will raise a glass to that.

at first you were intimidating.

down by the pier on a patio under the summer island heat –

we met when i was most desperate for a brother –

better yet a friend in need.

sometime over a weekend all i had left was time and even it ran out of sense. my judgement was far from accurate – one thing led to the next and i caught a blemish of the kindness within you. disguised by heavy metal and a few bad tattoos.

if only we knew what the following months would do –

late nights and missed mornings – bad habits borrowing from all the

loneliness i was storing.

drifting place to place without a trace in a town that didn’t recognize my face. it was all starting to take shape –

for i was heading the wrong way.

i needed to make a great escape or else my life would start to fade.

i give thanks each day for two good friends. without them i would have seen where that road starts and where mine ends.

it goes without saying our time wasn’t for nothing –

i hope we can mend the fence that separates us from being something.

the candid moments we shared are forever cast in stone.

even though i left without saying goodbye you still cross my mind –

comparable to something of fallen brothers you and i relied on each other.

one lifetime into another i wish you well – it’s not goodbye but rather see you in hell! cheers from here sailor.

may the silver bullet find you and love meet its maker.

the memories of a carefree year is something i’ll bitterly savior.

and if the devil is rock then you must be paper. until the next rising sun –

when these loose ends have come and gone – i’ll always wonder –

who else out there have i gotten dead wrong?

Laura Shirk

Location: Toronto, ON
About: I'm a Toronto-based freelance writer known for profiling international artists and retail marketing campaigns. My journal entry is a letter to the boy with no name. Spoiler alert: he has a name.
Age: 31

A letter to the boy with no name,

It’s been too many minutes to count.

Since the last time I caught your reflection looking back at me in the mirror.

Days.

Weeks.

Months.

Years.

You winked. I smiled. We stood still to prolong the moment; your mask.

We moved on.

Even with locked eyes and a steady breath, a first impression can be deceiving.

Even with locked eyes and a steady breath, a final impression can be deceiving.

There’s always more.

To learn.

To share.

To experience.

There’s no end in sight to engaging in conversation, peeling back the layers and removing the tops and bottoms to find something new. Something unexpected. For better or for worse.

I could call you a thief.

I could call you a coward.

I could call you a friend.

But what’s the point.

When you’re lost and don’t want to be found.

Patrick McDonnell

Location: Paris, France / Montreal, Quebec
About: About being young in Paris and meeting people who become friends.
Age: 68

Paris Friends

I usually am a good judge of character, and rarely am I fooled by people. When I went to Paris to study art, I embarked on a life changing adventure. I was 20, and ready to rumble. There was a time when I was afraid of everyone; I was shy and retiring. I hated high school. Couldn't get out of it fast enough. I had a lot of false friends. Superficial and vapid. I wanted adventure and a change.

Arriving in Paris, I knew a couple of old friends who lived outside of Paris, my parent's age, and they were kind and generous. But in Paris, I was distinctly alone. On my first day, I went to register at art school and a girl was in line before me and she pointed at a sticker of a road sign showing two bumps, and titled "don't be ashamed of your tits", in French. She giggled and told me she was from the island of Reunion where she went to the beach topless and asked me if I wanted to go see a film that afternoon. The 'new' me said yes, with pleasure. And so began an adventure where I was open to anything and everyone. To a point.

I met a gentleman in the Louvre who was looking at a painting of Corot, The Bridge at Narni, which we both mutually admired. So began a friendship with a 90some year old painter who had seen the Eiffel Tower built and had known Degas. Another time I began talking to an American artist who was drawing in the Louvre. He told me he was sleeping in the parks and so I invited him to stay at my place for a week. That was Roman, who was my best man at my wedding.

The first day of school I sat in the Metro car, looking at my pocket dictionary and a young woman sat down in front of me and smiled. We started a conversation about what is the word for sock in French. By the time she left, she had invited me to the see a Jean Renoir film at the Cinémathèque française on rue d'Ulm, to meet her and her friends at the Paris Mosque that evening for mint tea. And suddenly I had a whole family of friends in one shot. Many I still see and visit.

So I may be wrong about people but I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. It usually works out.

This is Roman and I in Park Slope Brooklyn when we were young, he is the one who looks like Fabio...

Nivita Arora

Location: India
About: As many journal entries tend to be, this was an attempt to speak something previously suppressed...
Age: 23

Of course, the first person that comes to mind has to be A. I was dead wrong about him, in every way imaginable. The irony, though, is that in reality we were far more alike than it either of us could perceive - but our identical defenses warped our images of each other, turning a friend into a threat. My defenses prevented me from seeing his insecurities, and feeling his softness. I never understood his care for me because I never fully trusted it. I put his love through too many tests, wearing it out til there was nothing left but a memory.

I took him at face value, rather than trying to understand him more deeply. I then dove into battle with his ghosts so quickly that they didn’t even have the chance to introduce themselves. Meanwhile, the prince they were guarding watched the bloodshed, and decided he was better off staying behind his castle walls.

I’ve apologized to him profusely. Yet somehow, no amount of regret and promises seem to fill the void in my mind that longs for a response. It’s as if that space is waiting for his embrace of my apology, an acceptance, but until then it casts it as rejected. How can I learn to forgive without needing to be forgiven?

Marigrace Bannon

Location: San Francisco, CA
About: My inspiration for all my entries were the prompts, my life and a great deal of introspection.
Age: 65

Well, as I sit in my San Francisco apartment, it is day 25 of the Cornona Virus in our necessary, Shelter in Place. I just viewed Samuel Jackson’s, YouTube video, Stay the Fuck Home. I wasn’t one of the people that needed convincing, in my 60’s with an autoimmune condition.

I’ve been dead wrong about the effects of atrocities. I like to think of myself as a kind and empathetic person. Whenever I would see the alarming pictures, in print or on the news, of a tsunami, a hurricane, an earthquake, I would donate a modest amount of money, often through the Red Cross or an appropriate App on my phone. When I saw the chilling photograph of the Syrian toddler face down in the Mediterranean Sea as his family attempted to flee the horror and violence in their country, I couldn’t stop crying. I remember, my brother, my sister, my niece, my nephew at three years old. They were all frolicking in the sea, the New Jersey shore, the Pacific Ocean the Caribbean Sea. The odd combination of hopelessness and privilege I felt as an American woman. What would my small donation, my free flowing tears, my ardent prayers, accomplish? How could this change the reality for people amidst horrific atrocities, natural disasters, political upheavals, fatal epidemics? Shame on me.

It was perplexing as I read about the Corona Virus outbreak in China. Next, I could only imagine the absolute terror to be among the 3,600 people quarantined in Japan on a ship called Princess. As the disease spread, Korea, Iran, it all felt so foreign. My ignorance loomed embarrassingly large when the virus spread like wildfire through France, Italy, Spain and England. Why did the disease suddenly feel so close? Is it just that, those are the countries I have visited for splendid vacations? Shame on me. Far away is not far. We are intertwined. We are human. We are global.

I never thought I was Martin Luther King, Gandhi, or Mother Theresa, but I do want to be a better Marigrace. After all, I am named from a prayer, “Hail Mary…

10. Dead Wrong – Elizabeth Gilbert