'You don't get a second chance to make a first impression.' That is the standard advice for an interview. An interview, of course, comes in many forms: job interview; first date; speed dating; doorstep canvassing; first meeting with your prospective mother-in-law; etc.  First impressions can only happen between people who have never met. They would not occur in a performance assessment interview with your boss.

What is it that catches the eye in a first impression? What features hit you as soon as the person enters the room? Here, whether we like to admit it or not, sex counts. Is it a male or female? There is a significant difference.

Females are experts at presentation: they look at themselves in the mirror before going out to face the world; they spend time deciding what to wear, including perfume; they check that their colours match; and when facing an interview, they are far more strategic in their approach: should it be a short skirt and leg show with six-inch stiletto heels; a business suit with or without trousers; and should hair be up or down? And then there is the depth of décolleté to consider. For a man, the only consideration is whether to wear a tie. Thus, men can blow it before they even enter the room.

When Carolyn, my twenty-five-year-old daughter, announced that she and her boyfriend were to be married, I was rendered speechless. I had never known her to have a boyfriend. She had always been a studious, career conscious sort of woman. My hackles rose. Who was this secret Casanova who had the temerity to seduce my beloved, vulnerable, unworldly daughter? Murder flashed through my mind.

One week later, Carolyn invited Casanova to come and meet me. I had already sharpened my kitchen knife, oiled the shotgun, and mentally prepared myself for the interview. When the doorbell rang, I went to the front door to meet the happy couple.

OMG! 

Standing before me was the perfect incarnation of a complete twat. A smiling John who laughs when there is nothing remotely funny to amuse and wearing a three-piece black suit with a technicolour bow tie and pink shirt. He must have been all of five feet tall, barely out of adolescence, and stood grinning at me with the moronic grin of someone bestowing his presence as a gift from the gods. And he stank of Lynx or some other effeminate male cosmetic. Oh, how I detest people who wear a permanent pointless grin. He looked like the twat who got the cream.

That was it. There would be no second chance for his first impression. Murder it would be.