The concept of someone giving their best self to those who they are closest with, but not offering acquaintances the same treatment, is more commonly thought of and socially accepted than the reverse.

But the reverse exists and is quite common.

We like to think of ourselves as people who treat our dearest loved ones with the utmost love, compassion, empathy, and respect. We like to believe that we give them majority of our attention.

If you have an intimate bond with someone – a specific relative, your child, a friend, and/or romantic partner – you feel very comfortable around them. You feel safe being more of your authentic self around them. You can be vulnerable around them. You can express yourself genuinely.

Because of this, you can show them your good, your bad, and your ugly without the fear of being critically judged or rejected. You feel safe and secure that these relationships will continue without end, whether there’s tension or not.

It’s not like this with acquaintances.

We don’t feel emotionally secure with acquaintances. Our relationship with them feels conditional dependent upon a variety of factors. That’s why we show them our “best self”, even if it doesn’t accurately reflect how we really are.

This is when we see certain behaviors come into play such as people pleasing, worrying about what other people think, and wanting validation from others in order to feel confident and happy.

This is when we start acting fake.

When we act fake, we are disgustingly agreeable. We suppress our actual thoughts and opinions (especially if they differ) in order to avoid tension. We avoid tension because it is socially uncomfortable and that’s typically not worth it. We show a positive persona even if we feel sad, angry, or stressed. When asked how we are doing, we always say “good”.

If we are honest about our mood, thoughts, feelings, and opinions, it will cause tension or the other person will react awkwardly.

We have conversations that we don’t want to have. We never tell acquaintances that we’re not in the mood to talk to avoid being hypocritically labeled as “rude”. We act like we care when we don’t. We act like we are interested when we aren’t. We end up saying things that we typically wouldn’t say. Sometimes we do things that we ordinarily wouldn’t do.

And although it has happened to most of us at one point or another in our lives, for many, this is every day.

We don’t consciously have bad intentions when we do this. However, we would be fooling ourselves if we denied that this social act we engage in is manipulative. It’s manipulative because we hold expectations of the other person – to like us, to accept us, to be nice to us how we’re nice to them – and we feel upset if they don’t reciprocate (as if something went wrong with a plan).

We gave them our “best” social self. We held our tongue for them. We acted pleasant for them. We listened to things that we didn’t want to listen to. We did things that we didn’t want to do. We tried to look good for them and sound good for them.

We suppressed our REAL for them.

So, what happens when these people don’t like us?

Instead of realizing that it’s truly never personal, that it’s unrealistic to expect all humans you meet to like you, and that it’s natural for individuals to be unique…it bothers you a lot.

You think about it more than you should. You give it an importance that it doesn’t deserve. It negatively affects your mental and emotional health.

This creates a pattern of searching for self-worth, wholeness, and happiness where it isn’t, where it will never be: in other people.

But what happens when these people like us?

Is this really the better outcome? We may be socially “cooler” because we have more “friends” and are socially accepted in larger numbers. But in accomplishing this goal, we have also put ourselves in a position to uphold this fake persona.

Now we continue to suppress our raw authentic self.

And maintaining this fake persona is absolutely draining because you’re complying with everyone else’s personality but your own.

This social act leads to cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance brings about very difficult emotions such as stress, anxiety, guilt, shame, and regret. It creates the illusion that what we have right now and how we are exactly right now isn’t enough to just stop, feel satisfied, and be happy.

As if it’s going to matter to us when we are dying whether or not this acquaintance or that acquaintance liked us, whether or not he or she wanted us, or whether or not anyone accepted our authentic self (as if that should have been the deciding factor of whether or not we accepted it).

Whether we are aware of it or not, we give this social game majority of our attention. We attach meaning to it even though it is meaningless. We place value on it even though it destroys us.  

It uses up a lot of our energy and monopolizes a lot of our time.

After all of that is said and done, what is left for what’s actually important? Just because you are physically somewhere does not mean that you are mentally and emotionally there. You can spend time with someone all while giving most of your attention to someone else, someone who isn’t even in the room.

And this is when we begin to see loved ones treated as a chore. This is when we start to take things out on our loved ones – emotions that, at their core, have nothing to do with them and everything to do with the frustrations we’ve bottled up from this social game.

We don’t all do this to the same degree, as we are all unique. However, regardless of degree, most of us who do this deny that we do. And as long as we keep denying, we will never evolve closer to the self with no regrets upon death.

The degree to which we love ourselves determines the extent to which we suppress our authentic selves for the sake of a “social image”. The degree to which you feel whole determines the extent to which you crave attention and acceptance from those who shouldn’t hold that power.

We only have so much energy to give, and it’s up to us to choose how we delegate it. With only so much time and space between each sunrise and sunset, it’s ours to decide how we wish to embody the eternal present.

This is exactly why we should never compare ourselves to others. All we would be comparing ourselves to is their act – the persona that they showcase.

Things are never as they seem.