Ideas & Opinions Are all people inherently fake in every interaction?
- Thread starter Veni Vidi Vici
- Start date
I'm not sure I'd call it fake as such but we are generally on our best behaviour when we meet someone new until we can get a rough idea on what they're like.
For instance, I love talking politics and have very strong views but I would be careful what I said to someone until I can suss out which way they think.
I also love dark humour but I wouldn't crack a joke like that unless I thought the person wouldn't find it hurtful or take offense.
Even when I get to know someone well I wouldn't think twice about telling a white lie if it means it might upset them if I didn't. My best friend bought herself a new dress for a ball we were going to. When we arrived she asked me if I liked her dress. In all honesty I hated it. But what good would it have done to tell her that? She obviously loved it and would have been upset if I'd said I hated it. Was I being fake? I guess I was but it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.
For instance, I love talking politics and have very strong views but I would be careful what I said to someone until I can suss out which way they think.
I also love dark humour but I wouldn't crack a joke like that unless I thought the person wouldn't find it hurtful or take offense.
Even when I get to know someone well I wouldn't think twice about telling a white lie if it means it might upset them if I didn't. My best friend bought herself a new dress for a ball we were going to. When we arrived she asked me if I liked her dress. In all honesty I hated it. But what good would it have done to tell her that? She obviously loved it and would have been upset if I'd said I hated it. Was I being fake? I guess I was but it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.
Everything we say and do is, in principle, to help us survive, including interacting with others, due to the fact that we're social animals who need to feel a sense of belonging within their community (whatever that might be, since communities differ). So under that perspective, one could say that every single interaction is "fake" in the sense that our end goal is basically self-preservation, which could be considered selfish. But at the same time, that's just our nature to preserve ourselves, and we biologically can't help that fact. So even though that’s technically the case, I would still say that people do genuinely care about other people...at times. Other times, however, it really is completely and utterly fake.
Maybe most but not all. I have a coworker (recently retired actually) that was legitimately always in a good mood. Always so happy go lucky. I never really thought about it until my struggles came back recently. But he was always genuine, always smiling. Just very blessed I guess, or figured life out early.
By contrast I now feel very fake. Trying to have good interactions with people when many times I'm secretly dying inside. But I was also fake before too. Acting like I was fine when really I was ignoring the mental health issues I knew I had.
By contrast I now feel very fake. Trying to have good interactions with people when many times I'm secretly dying inside. But I was also fake before too. Acting like I was fine when really I was ignoring the mental health issues I knew I had.
Maybe acting fake is a good thing? Ok let's say I'm feeling fed up, and I then decide that I'm going to smile and laugh and wave my arms about like a lunatic, then that might actually make me feel happier? So acting happy made me feel happy rather than the more traditional viewpoint of I was feeling happy and so I acted happy. (In a similar way acting confident, might end up making me a more confident person)
I agree that it depends. But some of it is performance. By that I mean, we all have different sides or elements that make us a complete person. Am I the same in front of a co-worker than I am my boss or my husband or a close friend or a casual acquaintance. No, I'm different with every one, but each person gets a real part of me, even if it's restrained because of the type of relationship we have. Some people, if I feel close to them, see a lot more of me and get more of the elements, but I don't know if I'm being fake if I don't want my boss to hear about how depressed I am, or if I don't want to disclose personal information. I'm just giving the situation what it needs or deserves.
I can relate to this, the boss asks you how you're doing and you say "fine", and then you think "why did he even ask me when he doesn't give a shit anyway?. He's the one being fake." But the only reason he asked me is because it's company policy. The company wants to portray that we're all happy wonderful workers who just love being friends with each other and watch out for each other in dark times. At one time you could dismiss all that as being a load of bollocks but now you have to play the game which is kinda depressing, because in the good old days it was a lot easier to work out those people who actually did care. Anyway the point is, there are good and bad reasons for being fake.
I don't know about every interaction, but it seems most people come across as disingenuous most of the time. I think people go into interactions with motives. People will not present their real selves if it acts against their motives or would cause conflict. It's probably both a good and bad thing. If everyone presented their true selves all the time we would have chaos. But at the same time, this makes it hard to know who people really are.