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When people tell you about their personality traits they're almost always wrong?

128 replies

Redruns · 19/10/2024 16:54

And probably telling you about the person they want to be or want you to think they are.

The obvious one is honest. I find people who tell you they're honest rarely are, people who are don't feel the need to tell you.

I have a friend who goes on and on about his emotional intelligence, but I don't think he's emotionally intelligent at all. I think he knows the kind of man he'd like to be and puts a lot of energy into pretending to be someone he's not, which must be exhausting. He's also a people pleaser, which basically means he's not honest with anyone.

Another example is a man who keeps telling me he's proud to be in touch with his feminine side but he's definitely not gay....it never occurred to me that he was until he started going on about it!

OP posts:
DMCWelshcakes · 21/10/2024 21:04

@Healingsfall Totally agree with the bit about misunderstanding "empathic sense" vs "showing empathy" to others. As it happens the person I know is a lovely human being, but I can see how that might not be the case with others.

CabbagesAndCeilingWax · 21/10/2024 21:06

I find that anyone who says "I'm marmite, me - you either love me or hate me!" is nearly always half right....

BonzoDogDooDahBand · 21/10/2024 21:46

Helpnifoseeker · 21/10/2024 10:13

Yes, excellent point! The main reason the likes of those with NPD and ASPD are so harmful is that they have little to no empathy and they are a minority among us , thanks be to God. If the vast majority of human beings had little to no empathy for others, things would start to go very wrong very rapidly and very soon, we'd destroy ourselves and the world itself. War is an example of this when both sides tend to dehumanise each other, to make it less horrifying to fight and kill.
The fact is, most of us have enough empathy to enable us to care enough about others to make society function. Not as well as it could, granted, but we've not descended into chaos just yet. It just shows though that being an "empath", a term I dislike, is not a very rare and special character trait. Being without it is what's rare!

Couldn't agree more!

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