I have struggled with people pleasing my entire life. I constantly strive to make others happy, even if it comes at the expense of my own well-being. That is, unless it happens to be something significant for someone who really matters to me. In those cases, I’m usually really busy. Or sleepy.
For people I don’t know or care about, though? I’ll do anything to win their approval.
The thing is, I need strangers to like me, and I’ll do anything to make that happen. But my loved ones? That doesn’t really do it for me. In fact, I’m usually so exhausted after a long day trying to please complete strangers that I don’t ever really show up for my loved ones in any meaningful way.
The people I love already love me, so there’s no pleasing that needs to be done. And if it’s something important? Good fucking luck. My brain is hard-wired to flake out on anything that really matters. Sorry, but I’ll be down with old Bill at the bar – I just met him and he wants to talk soccer. My mom who just asked me if I could drive her to her doctor’s appointment will understand.
You see, my self-worth entirely depends on how others see me – just not significant others.
I’ll chat with someone at a party about a topic I’m entirely uninterested in for the better part of an evening, just for them to call me “pretty chill” at the end of it. But if my best friend needs help preparing for an important interview? It doesn’t matter what she calls me – I am not doing that.
While many of my loved ones have informed me that this doesn’t actually make me a good person, it just makes me a fraud who manipulates people into liking me and then stops showing up for those same people the minute the relationship becomes substantial – I just don’t see it that way.
Everyone I care about has already decided that they like me, so I feel safe and empowered to be myself (lazy, unhelpful). Whereas strangers, well, they can’t decide they don’t like me if I mirror their exact personality back to them.
Basically, it’s like this: donate my kidney to a complete stranger? I’m absolutely in. Donate my kidney to my loved one? Well, it’s just kind of a bad time for me right now.
If they need anything else though, just let them know I’ll be down at the bar with Bill. He’s telling me all about how this year is Tottenham’s year, and I’m nodding with a degree of enthusiasm I didn’t even know I was capable of.
