Just Be Yourself, and Others will like you!
“What a load of crap” he yelled at me. The weight of his pain was evident in the way he moved. The depth of his pain was evident in his anger.
“I’ve been authentic,” he continued. “I’ve been nice, and all that happens is that I am permanently placed in the ‘friend-zone’. She’ll talk to me about the guys she likes and I never have a chance of being one of them. The only thing that gets me anywhere towards a relationship is being manipulative and playing games, because they are the only hope I have of not ending up in the friend-zone. Because that’s what you women do, you just play games.”
Ouch.
He was reacting to something I said in response to a speaker at a conference I was at. In this context I specified gender, but what I said was really about any person:
When you are your authentic self, you have the opportunity to model that authenticity for others. This may help another in finding their own authentic self, and that is intensely valuable.
He was angry. He had heard all his life, “Just be yourself and others will like you.” To him I espoused a belief that was contrary to the evidence of his life. To me, he had been cautious all his life so others would like him. His anger helped him throw caution to the wind and get in touch with what needed to be acknowledged. His anger held his hand the entire way. I still need that sometimes.
I fought my urge to walk away. Walking away would not be congruent. Other people told me to leave him alone because he wasn’t worth my time. That he wasn’t ready to step-out of his pain. That he was a lost cause.
Those people who told me I was better off walking away meant well. One of them didn’t want to see me blasted by his misdirected anger. The rest were echoing their own reactions to the situation. And if I had listened to them, I would have suppressed my desire to do what I thought was right for me.
We get messages suppressing our experience of ourselves all the time. They may start when we are young, often before we can talk. The parent who tells their child to put a jacket on because it is cold outside, ignores the fact that the child does not feel cold, and is not in danger of hypothermia or frostbite. The parent ignores that the child is capable of asking for or getting the jacket when they are cold. [1
Seems benign, doesn’t it? Telling a kid to put on his jacket because you don’t want him to be cold. The message is: his perceptions are not trustworthy. He is not trustworthy. This example is not likely to be damaging if the kid also gets reinforcement for their perceptions of reality.
A more damaging example: The six year old girl who makes a call to 911 because her father is holding her infant brother while yelling at and hitting her mother. She reports what is going on as she sees it, and then the father gets on the phone and tells the operator that nothing is happening and the mother then says they’re just talking, it’s no big deal.
The little girl learns: her perceptions are not trustworthy. That people who love each other, hit each other. That she is untrustworthy. Yet, the reality is she is the only one who seemed to be in touch with reality enough to call 911.
There are a lot of messages we get like that some of which come from a place of caring, and others which may come from somewhere else. If we’re lucky we get a lot of messages affirming our perceptions to balance things out.
In my opinion, the dictates contrary to our perception can deaden our sense of authentic self. I believe that when we loose touch with our authentic selves, the less we are accurately able to care for ourselves, because we are used to being trampled. We end up trampling ourselves, and letting others trample us. We don’t know how to be ourselves. And it shows.
If we are really lucky, we affirm our own perceptions and are able to test or believe in our experience regardless of what others say we should think, feel or do. We get to be accountable for our decisions and actions, wrong or right. We learn, grow and change, or stay the same. When we are practiced in accepting ourselves for whatever we may feel , we have a wider range of responses. We are not as bonded to the scripts of our pasts nor are we as likely to stuff ourselves into the boxes we should be in.
When we are able to be our authentic selves, we are not always liked. When I am closer to my authentic self, I am less concerned with being liked by others, and more concerned with how I am honoring myself whether in pain, in joy or anywhere in between. The more I accept me, the more I feel confident in who I am.
He brought up another point. That being manipulative and playing games gets others to like him. And that others are game players too! I don’t doubt any of that.
The word “manipulative” gets a bad wrap. I usually hear it in the context of distorting reality or facts in order to get one’s own way from others. A trick! It can also mean fixing mechanical parts, or using a tool skillfully. In this context, I’m referring to the negative connotation of the word.
It can be easy to be able to present confidently when being manipulative. If people don’t like you, it is easy to not take personally. It is, after all, a facade. A protector of emotions. When the manipulative self seems more likable than the authentic self, it can seem painful. So painful that perhaps the person attempts to adopt the the facade as themselves. The confidence that comes from the manipulative self being liked, seems more like arrogance.
Being confident in the skills of the manipulative self is separate from the confidence that comes from acceptance of self no matter the state. One is faith in the ability to deceive others, which brings with it the danger of not being able to connect with them even if they like you because of your manipulative behavior. The other is the calm that comes from accepting the self as is, which can aid connection. Arrogance is pretending to be competent in something and being confident to the point of superiority as a result of that over inflated competence.
There are so many ways to be in the world. I know few people who are able to be their authentic selves most of the time, they are able to acknowledge and integrate negative and positive emotions and responses in a healthy way. They are at ease in their own skin, and it shows. They are themselves, and not everyone likes them, and that’s ok. It seems easy for the people I know that are their authentic selves to like themselves.
Lexi*
I really like this post. I can also totally empathize with the guy in the example. The sort of self-regard that it takes to be authentic is very difficult to come by for most people. I had a hell of a time.
I’m sure that it wasn’t just the admonition to wear a jacket when I wasn’t cold. My healthy and thin mother constantly complaining about her weight and both my parent’s concern about my weight when there really wasn’t an issue certainly contributed. Whatever the contributors, I grew up distrusting my perceptions and finding it difficult to really make connections. I like to think that I’ve make great strides in growing past this in the last 3-4 years… Getting out of a 12 year relationship that constantly denied my perceptions helped. Really listening to the people who cared about me and trusting their perceptions helped too. Now, being in a relationship that reinforces my perceptions and values me for my authentic self ensures that I’ll continue growing.
Unfortunately, at earlier times in my adult life, I wasn’t ready to grow in this way. I made little strides (realizing that I had control of my weight and fitness, etc.). However, I couldn’t really embrace my authentic self. The power that I see in this post is it’s links between this issue and childhood/parenting. I have great hopes that I can reinforce the perceptions of my children and let them be authentic from the start. It’s a tall order, but I’ll do my best.
Thanks for a thought provoking post!
Cheers,
Tim.
but i think you believe that liking yourself trumps being liked, when it comes to happiness.
which is true, but it’s got a feedback in it
.
liking yourself isn’t an entirely independent variable, and if no one likes you, it’d get harder to do
Tim–
Yeah, I think it is easier for me to identify the ways in which we get away from our authentic self . . . I’m still not 100% satisfied with my description of what authentic self is and looks like, other than to acknoweldge every aspect of ourselves.
And thank you for sharing other examples and how your life has been affected. My mom did the same thing– very thin, always asking if she looked fat.
Eric–
You are right. I believe that, or maybe I just want to believe that (that liking yourself trumps being liked by others). And you are also right, that it is a feedback. Also we do tend to be happier when we have friends and social group we like. Certainly things to think about.
How do you balance liking yourself and others liking you?
Not that your analysis isn’t worthwhile – because it is – but it only took me to this sentence to figure out why this guy has little success in relationships.
The best hypothesis of the “nice guy syndrome” I heard is that it has little to do with being “nice,” and everything to do with stifling sexuality.
I think that most women -do- want guys that are nice, but they also want guys who are very masculine, and sexuality is a big part of this. Many guys equate being “nice” with being somewhat androgynous. Because they see jerks as being sexually demanding and inconsiderate, they erroneously assume that being nice must entail no sexual assertiveness at all. And most women don’t feel attracted to that.
Bad rep, not wrap ^__^
I don’t understand, sometimes, what people mean by their “true” or “authentic” selves. My “self” is made up of many facets, some of which are inappropriate to express, say, at work. And my “self” is shaped by the selves of the people around me, by society and its expectations (good and bad), by my reactions to society and its expectations, etc.
I’ve heard on more than one occasion people express the wish to develop themselves without the interference of outside influences, and I want to shake them out of their stupidity. The only people who develop without the interactions with others (and all the expectations and perceptions and baggage that comes with it) are those kids who then spend their lives rocking back and forth against a wall, completely stunted and unable to relate. It’s not possible for a human being to develop without such give and take from others around them, and part of this search for one’s “true self” is sorting through all the conflicting information and perceptions of ourselves by others.
As for angry!dude, maybe he should approach women he’s interested in with a romantic bend, rather than trying to be their bff and hoping that they’ll suddenly wake up and see him as a potential partner. You can be friends and lovers, but the dynamic of strictly platonic friendship and friend-lovers is very different, and it’s no wonder that if he mires himself into one role (and it’s a role, not his “authentic self”, since authentically he wants to fuck them, not discuss their boyfriends and highlight their hair) it’s difficult to make the switch.
John–
Do you know if he came to that conclusion before or after he was dating? Also, after talking to him alot more, he said that from a moment of anger and pain, and believes it to the extent that “just being nice” doesn’t work, and it requires him to be different than he has been.
Coanteen–
I definitly agree with the many facets of self– it is one of the trouble I had with writing this article, identify what is an authentic self. I once had a boyfriend tell me that he liked it when I was being my real self, and I asked him when I was not my real self, but what he meant was vulnerable and in touch with my feelings.
I do know some people who manage to be their true selves whereever they are, and I think it is because of how the direction they have grown themselves in.
Also, being in touch with your authentic self doesn’t mean having to express or act on every feeling that tickles ones nose– it in part means acknowledging that it is there. Like when I get angry at things, acknowedlging the anger is there is the biggest step in helping myself figure out what to do about it– in regard to my behavior in response to the anger, sometimes it is appropriate, sometimes it is not, and the ideal, I think, is to figure out what message the anger is giving you and how to express it optimally.
James–
I think you are on to something.
Lexi,
Those of us who’ve known you for many years know the “real you” your ex was talking about, the woman behind the analytical mask, when we see her. The shift is amazing, intense, and dangerously seductive. You’re more spontaneous, care-free, present, etc and it’s attractive as all hell. I can understand why you might hide it.
As for the post, if I’m reading this as intended, you’re trying to make the argument (and I use the term casually) that, in the dichotomous world of manipulative and authentic selves, the manipulative self is initially easier way out, but more painful in the long-run; that coming from the authentic self is as effective in dating and a better strategy somehow in other areas of life. I’m not catching the “how authenticity is better” part.
As for the obligatory pithy remark, being a dick is part of my authentic self. Fucking with people is fun.
Alex
P.S. I’d like to suggest to your web designer that the comment box be made larger, or scale to the browser window width instead of being treated as a columnar element.
P.P.S. Love the xkcd integration!
Ah, the ol’ nice-guy-syndrome. As a recovering “nice guy” here is what I have to say to him:
You need to stop believing your own bull shit. It’s you who is being dishonest and manipulative, not them. It’s time for a stiff dose of honesty rather than getting mad that reality isn’t the way you think it should be.
What do you REALLY want? You want to fuck this female “friend” of yours, you want to fuck her real bad. You do not want to be “just friends”. You want her and you to be like the animals on the discovery channel. You need to reflect on this fact for a while, and learn to accept that it’s the truth. Ok, so you want love and all that too. That’s great, but until you own up to the fact that you want to screw this lovely lady you’re not really being honest with yourself.
Now, what have you been doing and what have the results been? What you’ve been doing is to neatly hide away your sexual interest and try to be really nice to her. To be the bestest friend she could hope for. The idea being that she will see what a great guy you are (as apposed to those jerks who obviously want to screw her and for some reason she keeps on falling for), fall in love with you, and then you’ll get to be the guy screwing her.
To start with she might be a bit confused, “Gee, this guy just wants to be nice to me and doesn’t want to bonk my brains out.” But she’s a nice girl and after a while she comes to realise how valuable having such a nice male friend is. At this point you have become totally de-sexualised in her mind — you may as well have become her brother. You’re stuck in the friend zone.
What went wrong? The problem is that you lied to her. You acted towards her as if you just wanted to be her friend. She saw your interest in being friends, and eventually decided to go with this. She gave you want you asked for! In reality you actually want to be her lover. Your plan was to manipulate her into being your woman by being really nice to her.
What’s the solution? Be honest about what you really want. Yeah great, be nice to her, care about her, you don’t have to be a jerk. But you also have to let her know up front that in addition to these other things, you also want to fuck her. You want to be her man. You aren’t just looking for a new best friend. All you need to do is to send her a few signals at the beginning and she will understand what the situation is, and if you’re lucky, you might get what you really want.
One problem with the term “friend zone” is that it is a folk-psychology oversimplification. True friendships need to be treasured of course, where you like and help each other. If the only reason for a guy to be friends with a woman is to eventually sleep with her, I wouldn’t call the guy particularly ‘nice’.
Wikipedia documents Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, with (friendly) intimacy, passion, and commitment. And it seems to make sense, whenever I meet a new girl, either conciously or subconsiously:
1. Do I like her? (enough for at least a basic friendship)
2. Am I attracted to her? (enough for kissing etc)
3. Could we sustain a relationship? (commitment)
I find 3. the hardest to deal with (given 1 and 2)… and also something that perhaps teenagers don’t give much thought about but once you get older it seems to be more important.
I (a 32yo male) met a few women this year this way: we liked each other, we were at least somewhat attracted to each other… there was some kissing involved with one… but over the course of some talking discovered that we were on a different page, in life, religious beliefs, lots of things.
But I am still friends with them — you just accept that you need a more compatible match for a relationship and the attraction fizzles out over time. And now we can help each other and freely discuss relationships.
And.. you can act to be someone else than you really are, and that way get more sex… but does that help you long-term? Eventually your partner will get to know your true self anyway, and if the relationship was based on acts we’ll just have more heartbreaks and drama…
As others have said, it helps to be honest… if you are attracted to someone, show it! That’s where you need guts, as I’ve found out in the past, being too shy… You’ll find out soon enough how he or she reacts. But also if you have doubts about commitment, just tell them, and depending on the person (on both sides!) you’d go for ‘fun’, or you stop dating.