Who do you turn into when you get the attention you have been craving for?
I have been a people pleaser all my life. As far back as I can go in my childhood, I remember only performance, both mentally and around people.
Why, you may ask?
Because I wasn’t a very smart kid. I was one of those dumb kids who were ugly as well as awkward. I could always sense a resentment in the air whenever I met new people, as if they were wishing I were not there. I don’t know if it was true or just a little girl’s mind racing as fast as it could to figure out what was wrong with her.
I figured this very early in life, if I said or did what people wanted me to do, I would be likeable. Thus, I started to act like a good girl in every family gathering, with every distant relative and with my neighbors, so I could be the girl they use as an example to get their kids to behave.
But do you know what’s worse?
That I am still that little kid trying to act like a good girl.
It’s one of the reasons I believe, ‘who you are when everyone is watching is far more important than who you are when no one is watching.’
From the old Russian philosopher to the internet millennial philosopher, they want you to question yourself, about ‘Who are you when no one is watching?’
And when you sit with it, you realize, there is no audience to entertain, no one who is watching the perfect performance you curate in your head, and well, the theatre is dark.
I am not denying the importance of the above question. But there is a flip side to this question where people like me exist. The ones who are quite ‘authentic’ in their isolation, but transform into an alien as soon as they meet certain people they want to impress.
To give you an example, I met this guy at the beginning of this year. I had zero interest in him. It wasn’t even a date. Just two people who are from the same industry getting together to know each other. But as soon as I heard him talking about geopolitics, art, Greek mythology, Italian and Indian architecture, and the speed with which he was able to quote Shakespeare to Friedrich Nietzsche. I was impressed, which directly meant somewhere in my head, I felt the urge to make an impression as well. So, I started saying things I knew he would want to hear. I said things I didn’t even believe in. I laughed at his sexist jokes and nodded along when in reality, I wanted to smash his face against the wall. I agreed with a huge smile when he looked at two old age men who were clicking pictures by the sea and said, ‘Why do they need to take pictures at this f*ck ass age?’
When I came back home, I wanted to push myself off the balcony or maybe slap myself hard on the face, but I couldn’t do either, so I sat down on my bed and buried my head between my knees. I felt shame. I felt embarrassed. But most of all, I felt small, as if somehow I had disrespected myself. And didn’t I?
I spent that whole night, and later on the entire week, thinking about ‘why do I change so much in front of other people? Why do I become someone I am not?’
The more I thought about this, I realized I have been doing this in every single relationship of my life. I am always performing. I am always trying to ‘guess’ what the other person would want me to be, and I become that.
As I looked back on my past and watched every performance I have given in front of the people, I realized one of the reasons I feel ‘shame’ easily is because I have been treating myself as someone who needs to be hidden. Because, even though in big ways, I am more confident than anyone I know, from deep within, my idea of ‘self’ is still the same as I had when I was a kid — the ugly, not-so-smart, awkward girl.
I try my best to hide that girl. I try to say the funniest things. I try to be so interesting that you can’t help but feel pulled towards me. I act innocent sometimes because I don’t know how to take up space, and be loud without feeling as if I am on display to be dissected by people.
