Much to my chagrine...

I am an intimidating person.  I'm not loud and in-your-face (unless you make fun of my momma), and I'm not a jacked giant with skulls tattooed on my arms.  But I have received numerous reports from people that they were scared of me at first. I get a little sad when I hear this, because I'd like people to think I'm easy to approach.  Also, I don't usually strike up conversations or approach other people just for the sake of meeting them, so if they don't do it to me, no one will.  It makes me wonder if I subconsciously give off an aura of "don't talk to me", or if I'm just not friendly-looking, or if I'm acting in a way that somehow makes people uneasy.  A few people have attempted to explain their reasons but that usually fails to shed any light on it, in my opinion.

Most of my high school friends like to remind me that I was intimidating at the beginning of high school before they got to know me.  I didn't talk to my stand partner in concert band until second semester in part because I was shy, and in part because she was scared to talk to me.  A freshman I'm friends with now and have a couple classes with told me he was intimidated of me in our first semester speech class.  Maybe it's because I'm usually pretty quiet around people I don't know, and somehow that gets to people.  Or maybe it's because the default position of my face and/or eyebrows tends to a bit of a cross look (I think, anyways).  Or maybe its that time I stood on a table in the commons with a butter knife and said I was going to kill everyone in their sleep.  Whatever the reason is, it's beyond me.  I guess I just need to try to look nicer or something.  *sigh