Talking to my wife at breakfast today, she mentioned bumping into a good friend of ours that moved away a number of years ago.
We always liked him, but never his wife. Not that she was awful to be with — there was just something off with her interactions with us. We felt that we never saw ‘the real’ person. Her husband was great — open, honest, informative, and pleasant to be with. We just got the impression that she was critiquing us during our get-togethers and most certainly afterwards.
I think it comes down to authenticity. She wasn’t authentic. She didn’t let us see the real person — she kept a lot of her personality inside and hidden. When we spoke about meeting the husband to another neighbor, they also commented about the behavior of the wife.
First off — it’s not a male/female thing — both are equal opportunity offenders. But you need to observe your behavior — here are some telling signs:
- You don’t have many close friends. They don’t call you to get together.
- You find that you aren’t ‘in’ on many things at work.
- You are the last to hear about something important happening.
- At parties, people tend to shun you – or they at least keep you at a distance.
How to counteract this?
- Open up – let people know how you feel.
- Tell personal stories - this allows people to understand WHO you are.
- Comment openly – take their feelings into account, but be honest.
- Don’t gossip. Don’t spread rumors.
- Smile - look people in the eye when you speak.
- Ask people about their day, their work, their life.
- Act genuinely interested in their response.
- Ask if you can do anything for them.
On a scale of 1-10, 10 being totally authentic, and 1 being a total fake, where do you sit? What can you change to be a bit more authentic?
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This opens up a hole discussion on personality. Almost all of us are different depending upon the circumstances which surround us. Are these differences creating fakes or are they something else?
Let me try to give some examples:
I went to a private school in England. To confuse the remainder of the world we call these schools Public Schools, but the capitalisation is important. While attending the school we were just kids. At reunions we behave differently. More than one of the alumni puts on a very much more (he thinks) refined accent and mode of speech when back in the old school environment. One such becomes what he thinks is refined and upper class. He is an arse, but is he a fake?
At work we are in an environment where we compete for recognition, for promotion, or even for survival, perhaps all three. We are not the same person we are with our family. We wear a veneer of corporate responsibility, or a veneer of management ability, or a veneer of invisibility. It is a rare person who is completely open and honest and displays their relaxed, social self at work.
With work colleagues when off duty we display the ‘hail fellow well met’ machoness to the degree our workplace demands. We are the people who are on the Olympic Drinking Team. We are the ones who stay awake until 4am and then man the exhibition stand at 9am with bleary eyes because that is our (stupid) macho work image. We do the business a disservice by puffing garlic breath into customers’ faces and we anaesthetise them with stale booze fumes. But we are one of the boys, or the girls. Most people who do this are created by peer pressure, real or imagined. Are they fakes?
At home, with our families, with our partners, we are the model spouse, the model parent, the model lover. We ignore, or try to ignore, their irritating habits and major on the good ones. We praise where, sometimes, we would blame. Does that make us fake, or does that make us wise? Or are we both or neither, or something else entirely?
There are other scenarios. I know I can think of more. So can you.
I take issue with your key signs, though:
You don’t have many close friends. They don’t call you to get together.
The world is made up from those who are called and those who call. Those who are called are often the popular people who are too rude to call others. Everyone has to call them because, close friend or not, they never call, not ever. We all know who they are, and we all agree that we have to call them in order to get them involved in anything.
You find that you aren’t ‘in’ on many things at work.
Work is a place where one has no need to be ‘in’ on things except those that affect one or that one can contribute to. Or do you mean the gossip that you advise us to beware later on?
You are the last to hear about something important happening.
Define ‘important’. Work is a place where one is part of that which is important because one has a part to play. My important task is not even on the radar of the job you do. Why would you be in on it? Why would I be in on your important task?
At parties, people tend to shun you – or they at least keep you at a distance.
And what if you, yourself, are shy?
None of these, either individually or as a group indicate that one is a fake. They indicate differing social awareness, differing comfort levels, differing business and other values, but they do not say that one is a fake.
So, the wife of the friend – what of her?
Perhaps she thought all her husband’s acquaintances to be beneath her. Perhaps she was all at sea and felt oppressed in their company. Perhaps she was secretly sleeping with their wives, sons, brothers, daughters, and kept herself to herself. Perhaps she was insecure. Perhaps she had spent years failing to conquer a speech impediment. Perhaps she wore a colostomy bag and was embarrassed over sound and possible odour.
What steps did you take to ensure that she was at ease in your company? How genuinely inclusive was your hospitality? How far towards her needs did you walk? Did you act genuinely interested in her responses while waiting for the chance to ask another question or were you truly interested in her responses and did you respond to her responses?
I use the pronoun ‘you’ but I am using it, mainly, in its pseudo third person form of ‘one’. I say ‘mainly’ because your neighbour’s wife is a personal example of yours.
Oh, where do I sit?
I sit at 10.
It has lost me every job I ever had
I should have ben a zero all my working life.
And, dammit, with preview I’d have seen ‘hole’ where I should have written ‘whole’. Ah well. And ‘ben’ instead of ‘been’. Shot happens!
When my husband and I split, many people opened up that they always felt him to be unauthentic. I was the open one and he the aloof character. So much was social ignorance – unschooled in the fine art of conversation. Every time you are in a social situation and engage in conversation, listen, truly listen to the person who is speaking ‘with’ you. You then can respond with an open comment that will continue the conversation. I love to hear what people have to say, but if all I’m thinking about is ‘When is it my turn to speak?’ thats not good either…
I’m with you, BJ. Social interaction is not meat and drink to everyone. Some of us learn the skill with ease, others never even realise they don’t have it.
“Authenticity refers to the truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, devotion, and intentions.” Think about it…based on this, it’s not easy for most people to behave in a truly authentic way. The mere fear of social repercussion is enough to stop most of us. Add to that the fear of eternal exposure via the Internet and it’s amazing any of us are even half-authentic about anything. Rich, you and the missus didn’t like the wife because she seemed fake. Maybe she WAS being authentic, but her personality simply didn’t work with yours. Maybe there were a host of other issues causing her to be more guarded than you liked. You just don’t know about people. At any rate, I feel the idea of authenticity, which actually relates more closely to the modern concept of business transparency, is getting lost just a bit in this discussion of personal preferences. But I do see your point.
I would have to agree with Tim, authenticity is important to some, perhaps not all personalities. Perhaps this woman was an Introvert and not comfortable with ‘chit-chat’. Perhaps she was also a ‘Green’ personality and not favourable to redundant social situations. Some personalities are very comfortable being alone and not in the know – maybe they just don’t care. We all have a tendency to judge others through the filters that have shaped us, including societal norms, our own personality style and how we have been nurtured. I think it is dangerous to assume that anyone is ‘fake’, they may be living in a world that is unaccepting of who they are and are trying to ‘fit in’. In particular, in North American society the accepted norm is to be open, sharing and extroverted, introverts are often harshly judged as a result. Was the person above critiquing you or was that your perception based on your own personal filters?