Similar to my last post, this topic I wanna speak about I feel as if only a handful of people will understand EXACTLY where I’m coming from. And to those of you that do understand, I hope that this serves as a reminder:
You’re not alone.
But what is it that I want to speak about? And it’s this:
Some of us feel that we wear too many faces.
And what do I mean by that? Now, the first thing that might come to mind is me suggesting that some of us are a bit too fake; that we mask ourselves with faces that don’t belong to us. We hide, trick, and manipulate people with the many the different facades we put on to get what we want.
No. That’s not what I’m referring to here, though there are people out there like that.
Actually I’m referring to this idea, or rather, this feeling that I have in that I have many different faces, and maybe different “personalities” is a better word, for different social situations.
But okay, that doesn’t seem too unusual. We all have that; it’s called Social Awareness. Yet, still, I’m not referring to that either.
It’s more complex than that, and I think only those who know what I mean will really get what I’m trying to say.
What I’m trying to point out is that some of us have thoughts, feelings, expressions, entire personalities we let few, or even no people at all ever see. And when we go out with our “friends”, our “coworkers”, our “family”, we put on the face we know they’re used to seeing.
“Best not rock the boat,” we tell ourselves.
And what I mean by that is they’ve known you to be one way, and to suddenly change, to act in a way that is asynchronous to what their prior expectations tell them how you should behave, it would only cause questions.
So best just act in the way you always have. So you do.
My question first would be, is that you being fake? Are you being ungenuine when you take this path? And that’s a tough one to answer, and I don’t know if there’s an obvious answer. But one thing is undeniable:
It certainly feels like being fake.
It’s like this…whenever I have to “restrain” myself from acting in a way that is not the “norm”, at least in the sense that it’s not what the group expects me to act in, then well, it does feel as if I actually am restraining myself.
It feels as if I’m holding myself back; like there’s a wall up that I’ll know they’ll never break down because they don’t even know it exists.
And these uni-laterally perceived walls we put up create distance, at least that’s been my experience.
It creates this sense of me feeling as if this group of people I’m surrounding myself with, they don’t truly know me, and maybe they never will. And for me in particular, this becomes a dangerous, dangerous thing.
For me, because of this distance I’ve seemingly artificially and solely self-created, I never fully feel comfortable with the group, therefore, never create the friendships and relationships I think we all crave so badly as human beings.
And I guess, in the end, if I’m the only one who knows of this “other me” who exists….
Which one is really me? Because in a way, the other one doesn’t exist.
thanks for reading,
cory
I’ve seen quite few people like that, usually well-hidden/quiet individuals (or so I thought) until something broke them out of their shells, and all of a sudden they became the life of the party, lots more interesting that the folks who used to be the life of the party. Seems like keeping it all buttoned up leads to quite an explosion of interestingness when they finally blow up 🙂
I’ll share a few “coming out of the shell” events where the folks became different after something…
One of the guys that I know went on a 6 or 8 week trip into the Mid-west, was helping on a ranch out there, only had his cousin with him. When he came back, was a changed person (being with so many strangers helped him reach out)
Another person went with a youth group into the mountains for a weekend, things got really crazy, they stayed up all night, had a big “bonding” moment over the whole weekend, and when he came back had changed quite a bit.
My “coming out of the shell event” has never been a one-time event… I just keep gradually pushing myself out 🙂
Love your content, BTW, keep up the awesome work!
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There’s nothing here that I don’t fully understand, believe me when I say that. I’ve learned to “come out”, and like you, over a gradual period of time.
My biggest dilemma comes when I get to that point of, should or should I not “come out” with this particular Group of people.
I ask myself things like “is it worth the little bit or even a lot of bit of resistance they might have adjusting to my (more or less) new personality?”
Often times I find myself answering that question with a “no”.
And maybe you’re right…alcohol might help that. Unfortunately, I have a certain distaste for alcohol and don’t particularly like getting drunk.
Makes things a little more tricky now doesn’t it? 😉
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Look up natural ephorics, might be something up your alley. I tried one of them and found it interesting… not comparable to alcohol, totally different experience (I tried something called Kin)
Alcohol (for me) didn’t work to “bring me out” as I naturally turn into a quiet, sober, philosophical drunk and not a loud yelling drunk 🙂
I lost or have never had the filter of “what do they think of me” … but more of an “I’m interested in how people do this, and I’d like to study everything you crazy folks do” kind of guy. Creepy, yes, but I know a lot more about people and when I start coming out I can understand a lot better what’s happening than a lot of the ones that have been out there for so long (or so I think)
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Oh, and in one of those cases, it involved a lot of alcohol… not that I suggest going that route…
I’ve had my share of alcohol and find myself opening up a lot more since I quit the use of it 🙂
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