To judge a book by it's cover..

11 years ago, I was a college student who didn’t know how to have crazy fun. I did have fun, reading, and browsing the internet. I wore thick glasses, and a continuous pony tail. I was that student who always sat in the front row and got straight As. I loved discussing politics and spiritual beliefs, and spent most of my days reading & studying. Ok, I just wasn’t a ‘cool’ student.

On my second year, and through some mutual friends, I met a guy named Rami. From the moment I set my eyes on him, I didn’t like him. He was shining! He wore designer clothes, he was also cleanly shaved and perfumed, he was that guy who can’t wait for a new trend to begin to be the first to try it. And he wasn’t self-conscious about it, Noooooo, not Rami! He was very comfortable with who he was, in the most annoying way.

To top all of that, the first time I met him, and during one of the first sentences we ever exchanged, he made a remark about my eye brows, and how they would look better if I did so-and-so with them to hide that childhood scar. That was it, for me. Was this guy serious?! In my head, you could almost hear the ticks running like crazy, before settling into the label I had chosen for him: Obnoxious empty-headed rich little kid. I hastily wrapped up that conversation, and left, thinking to myself: I never want to know that guy! Eeew!

On the 3rd day of that horrible meeting, I ran into Rami again. We stopped briefly exchanging a cold hello, and when I attempted to take a look at my watch to make an excuse of having to run somewhere, I noticed my watch wasn’t working. Before I could stop myself, I blurted that something must be wrong with my watch, as it’s not working. Rami then said that he knows a place where he can fix it, and offered to take my watch, have it fixed, and back to me. Actually, he insisted in such a nice way, that I had nothing else to do but hand him my watch. As we exchanged our phone numbers, I still hoped that by the time I would get my watch back, it would be the last I hear from him.

But what happened was actually slightly different. Rami gave me back the watch, and we had a cup of coffee together. Then college broke on leave, and we both left the country for some time, but we called one another. 10 years later, Rami is still my best friend of all times.

I have had so many memories with Rami over the past years, that I can dedicate an entire book just for that. But I will only say that we shared endless laughs, wicked moments, cried together, and we have been through a lot. There were several times when our friendship was put to severe tests, but we passed these tests each and every time.

Rami does like fashion, he loves dancing, and he would go nuts if he had to lose his social life for a few days. But he is also compassionate, and he will be there when you are in trouble and need help. He will tell you what you don’t need to hear when you have to hear it. He will never lie to you and he will always always be there when you need him to be.

And if I had followed my feeling at the time, the last time I would have seen Rami was when he handed me back that watch. I judged him, at the moment I set my eyes on him. He was a spoilt rich kid, he is superficial, and I would never find anything to talk to him about. If I had followed that judgment, if I had quit, then that’s ALL I would have had.

Sometimes, our judgments get the best out of us. They stop us from getting what we want; because we think we know it all. We judge people so easily, we set labels for them, and forget that there is a lot more than meets the eye sometimes. As I grew up, there were many actions through which I judged those who did them as naïve, stupid, immoral, or superficial, and later found myself doing the exact same things. Most of the times, we don’t see the full picture, we don’t know what lies behind, and we judge by the little we see.

Let's not judge, and accept other for who they are, and trust that they mostly come in mixed layers of good and bad, and that we can always take your pick of it.