To think that no one is really who they seem?

Of course people present a side of themselves they want to show. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all went about showing are true feelings, voicing every thought in our heads and behaving as if there were no etiquette or social filters? We all show to others what they want or expect to see to some degree or another. And a good thing too. In fact I think its more worrying to meet someone who doesn't moderate themselves as this usually indicates they either have no idea of what's acceptable, or they don't respect other people enough to comply with it. With everyone else, you basically just keep your fingers crossed they're not concealing anything too awful, and if they are, they never let it loose.

You say: I’ve just been struck by how different some people’s ‘public’ selves are from how they act when things get messy or stressful. It’s less about secrets and more about the surprise when the mask slips.

What do you mean here exactly? Are you talking about how people respond to emergencies and disasters? Because I suspect that none of us really know how we will react in those circumstances. I’m generally quite good in a crisis, and would hope that might carry over to real emergencies, but I can’t say for sure that I might not collapse completely into helplessness in the case of a house fire or something. Hopefully, I’ll never have to find out!

Or are you talking about how people react in certain friendship/ family scenarios? Mumsnet is, for example, full of posts about how an OP ‘thought they knew someone but now feel completely betrayed because that person doesn’t want to go to the OP’s child and partner free two week destination wedding in Outer Mongolia even though the OP is giving them 12 months notice to save up the £25,000 it would cost them to attend…’
And various similar scenarios in which it is actually just that the poster has set up rather unreasonable expectations and is putting the blame on anyone but themselves.

There are, of course, many situations in which someone might react in a way that makes the other feel upset or betrayed. Saying that the ‘mask has slipped’ while perhaps true can often be an over simplification of the situation and ignores how the other may be feeling similarly disappointing and let down.

Friendships and relationships and working relations sometimes fail and people sometimes say and do silly things that they later often regret and that come from a place of hurt and upset. But it doesn’t mean the mask has slipped and this is finally the real person appearing from out of a carefully built up front, it just means people respond to scenarios in ways they sometimes wish they hadn’t.

Yes, I think that's absolutely true. Different stressors bring out different sides of people, and it's hard to know how you will respond until put in that position for real. One of the strange things about writing fiction is that the things people really do in stressful/frightening situations (as, say documented in crime reports, reported by witnesses) often don't make a lot of sense, and would come across as deeply implausible in a novel.

I thought myself that I'd long since dealt with an unpleasant childhood incident, and am only realising now, while in therapy for something else entirely, that in fact it's had a wide ranging impact on my thought processes, life decisions etc in ways I was totally unaware of. It has certainly had a lingering impact on the way I behave in certain situations.

I think it’s true up to a point. I didn’t know who I was until my 40s and probably had a series of personas because I tried to fit in with ex’s friends and people I didn’t really like or have anything in common with owing to the people I knew at that time. Now I’m older I have friends I actually like and love which naturally allows me to be me. It’s very complex and something I think about a lot now I’m older. I used to try and understand people and fit in with them despite subliminally not enjoying their company. I think there’s a lot of performative and in my case drunken efforts to be someone who could assimilate with people I had nothing in common whatsoever. I think that’s a lot to do with it.

Oh definitely paper over any cracks that they see as putting them at a disadvantage or not commenting on something you’ve got or done then going and doing it/buying it themselves then presenting it as an original idea.
SM is the weirdest one. I worked with someone who’d previously worked with a girl I was at school with. This person had told my colleague what an awful abusive marriage she was in and the lengths she went to to keep the husband away from her. Her SM tells a very different story. You’d think they were love’s young dream. All very confusing

Even people who say 'Not me! I'm the same all the time' are not, in fact, quite the same all the time. People who think they don't code-switch actually do code-switch, but it's subconscious.

It's certainly a bigger switch in some people than in others, though.

Sometimes, of course, it's just necessary to do it. I'm not a naturally friendly person. I don't enjoy meeting new people and in an ideal world I wouldn't actually bother to talk to many people at all. But when, eg, someone new starts where I work, I will of course make an effort to chat and say hi and make sure they feel welcome and be nice to them and include them and make them feel at ease. That isn't the 'real' me. The 'real' me just wants to glance up, say 'Hi', probably without even smiling, and then completely ignore them (even if they're lovely). But the 'real' me is a standoffish, self-absorbed arsehole, and it would be rotten to inflict that on people, plus I'd probably repeatedly get fired for being a dick.

While I think everyone does have slightly different versions of themselves, generally speaking, I don't really subscribe to the notion that everyone's a big fake and will be revealed as someone totally different when the 'mask slips'. I do think that some people are much worse at seeing through the 'mask' and therefore get a bigger shock when it does slip. I can certainly think of a times when someone has said 'I was so shocked when X did Y, I'd never have believed they were the type to do that' and I've thought 'That's odd, because I always thought they seemed exactly the type to do that'.

I guess I’ve just been struck by how different some people’s ‘public’ selves are from how they act when things get messy or stressful. It’s less about secrets and more about the surprise when the mask slips.

i don’t think this is the ‘mask slipping’, I think you just don’t know how you’d react until you’re in that situation. The calm, rational me who works as a prison officer, and was able to calmly sit and liaise with the doctors when my sibling attempted to take their own life, was the exact same person who went to pieces the day after I had to get myself and my child out of our burning house.

I was the exact same person facing a prison riot, as I was during that house fire. One just affected me much more.

I read somewhere that you can never truly know another person, and I think that's right.

Every individual is a whole universe onto themselves. No matter how well you think you know someone, you can never be privy to their inner world.

Of course people present different aspects of themselves in different scenarios. It is how we learn to cope, flourish, survive, and manage different situations.

The person I am at work is vastly different to the person I am at home, or in social situations - and those situations can vary wildly depending on the people there and the situation - and indeed the person I am with my child is different to the person I might be with my partner.

That is not to say any of these personas - or really those aspects of me that are brought out in different scenarios - are fake, they are all valid parts of me. Some times I might exaggerate some part of me (my professional part, my parental fun part, my social vim, or, when alone with my partner or a great friend, my vulnerabilities, fears, love, etc.). Sometimes we put on acts, to cope in situations. I mean, I think most of us at times get that feeling of inadequacy at work or whatever and have to put on some sort of front. But mostly different things draw out different parts of us. And we are all full of contradictions too. I can love and want to go out with friends and socialise and - sometimes at the same time - far rather sit snuggled at home shutting the world out.
As a parent I am often far more hopeful and bubbly and playful than I might really feeling. Yet, it’s not a lie. And indeed, even after the hardest days, with the news filled with awfulness and work hard and money tight, and illness creeping in, my child can suddenly strip all of that away and bring out my very happiest and most contented self.

Social Media, which I suspect is really what you are getting at here is different of course. It’s all pretence. It’s all about putting across a very specific and very much edited version of oneself. Conversations with friends and colleagues can often be the same: we self edit and we share those things we choose to. Some only seem to share the very best bits, others seem only to share the pain and spite and vitriol. But, certainly, it’s only a carefully curated, highly edited aspect of them. It doesn’t mean it’s all make believe but it’s certainly not them fully exposed for all to see.

I remember friends and family being rather shocked once, that I was so upset when a long term relationship of mine finished. ‘But you and X had such a difficult relationship, it must be a huge relief to be out of that?!’; the thing was that to my close family and friends I had shared my fears and frustrations and pain. I hadn’t felt the need to run to them to share all the very marvellous things. So yes, we only show certain aspects of ourselves to certain people at certain times.

I’m complex, as I suspect most of us are, and I am never showing all aspects of myself to anyone or in any situation. Not even to myself and it would no doubt take years and years of therapy to unpick it all.

But it doesn’t mean each isn’t true. It’s just a part of a bigger truth, part of us as enormously complex creatures.

It’s perfectly reasonable to adjust your behaviour and conversation depending on where you are and who you are with. Dinner with my parents won’t be the same as dinner with colleagues for example.

I also think it’s unreasonable to expect people who are ill/stressed/distressed to behave in exactly the way they do in normal circumstances.

The only person I need to be true to is myself.

Yes. Everyone has multiple versions of themselves. It's normal. What leads some people to struggle socially is if they are completely incapable of shifting their mode of self-presentation, depending on company, context, formality of situation. No one presents the same way at home with their child at 4 am as they do in a boardroom, playing football, in a courtroom, at a parents' evening, negotiating a bank loan, out with friends etc etc.

I'm from a very poor WC background originally, but got out via education -- I have different modes for family/extended family, DH, professional contacts, friends etc. I speak several languages well, and I'm slightly different in each language, and how I function socially or professionally in different countries, responding to different norms.

People are very complex and adapt to their surroundings accordingly. I find my problem is that I don't really do that at all. I actually feel I act the same with everyone. Though I always make an effort to be polite to people in shops or if I bumped into a neighbour or something.
But I think you need to be a bit different at work than you do at home.

I haven’t really found this. But I also don’t expect people to be the same all the time. I think it’s normal for people to have complex goals and desires, to feel more than one way about things, and to change over time as they gain experience.

I don't agree that most people have a completely different underlying persona to the one you see (it can happen but is assume its fairly unusual).

People will generally have a polite/civil face for work and social situations where they don't know others well. They might not talk about things they are interested in unless they fit with the situation. That's not hiding yourself, it's fitting in with social norms. For example I'm very calm, professional and polite at work. Outside work I can be a bit sweary, have a filthy sense of humour, like a drink or three and going to rock festivals - former colleagues I have stayed in touch with have expressed great surprise when they get to know me better but I was never hiding it, it just didn't come up in a work environment.

How people react in crisis is sometimes surprising if it is unlike their surface persona but often people do not know themselves how they would respond until it happens - we never even know ourselves completely.

On that note I have been surprised to discover things about myself even quite late in life that I never knew. For example that I am good at managing people and really enjoy it (did not have a management role until 44 when it came with a promotion and was the but I was dreading). I'm wondering now what else I might find out about myself before I die!

Well people either love me or hate me but I am the same online or in real life, I don't look for agendas and don't find them.

Yes i have come across nice and not so nice people but my first instinct has never let me down

I have autism and I’m always the same, plus I can’t lie at all. It’s caused me so many issues I wish I could have different sides for different situations. Instead I’m just me and apparently blunt, to the point, tactless 🤦😂

Some of it is down to your perception as well. How many time do we read an op that is clearly someone who is in a lot of trouble with a relationship or who is overly controlling to the point where a partner can even touch his own body. They clearly don't know their partners, their situation, or themselves

I often think we don't know ourselves well either. I'm a quiet person, people assume I'm shy, but it's just that I speak when I have something to say. It also makes me a tell the truth and shame the devil kind in ways, I always surprise myself with the bravery of some of the things that trot out of my mouth in situations where I feel someone is being unfairly treated. No one expects me to be able to stand up in front of hundreds of people to give a passionate response to something and yet I've done it quite a few times, and every time I had no idea I was going to do it 😆

I am who I am, a pretty authentic type of person, I can adapt to other personalities but essentially I am still me. The only difference is that I suffer from crippling anxiety which is in my head and not visible from my exterior. So I guess in that respect I am faking it a bit, but ultimately what you see and hear from me is the real deal.

very true

Meet a parent in child's playgroup or in a business environment, you have 2 very different individuals.

Why do think that people should have only one version of themselves. People are presented with all manner of situations and scenarios in their lives that may change the way they act.

Why is their true nature only when you don't like it.

I thought this was going to be about something else

But it's taken me till being 49 years old to realise that I'm a weirdo for being straightforward.

Loads of people seem to be in on playing games with their personal interactions and I feel like I never even knew. I don't even know how to explain it.

I absolutely agree that everyone's entitled to their privacy, but I don't think that's what your post is about really is it @YourPoisedGreyRobin

just editing to add, I also didn't realise how much people talk shit to cover up the real issue, even just to persuade themselves to feel better, and a lot of people seem to instinctively understand this and see through it.

I'm not actually suggesting that people are bad. Just that they present in all kinds of strange ways.

we are not feral animals, for the sake of everyone, it makes life easier for all to put on some civilised mask

Look at this forum, people are accused of being troll (or even .. a "man"!) or nasty for replying with honestly. Most of them only tell you what they think, but won't say in public because why start a fight then?

I pretty much am. However, why should people present their entire selves to the world? We are entitled to personal privacy.

I expect the people around me to share only what they want to. If they want to look well groomed in public but slob about in PJs at home, that’s fine. Look calm and in control when they are an anxious mess inside, crack on.

I don’t need to know my neighbours, work colleagues, innermost thoughts- their sexuality, health worries, politics, favourite tv programme.