How would you describe a people pleaser?

[Waitingforthesunnydays]

I keep hearing this thrown around everywhere. I think it’s becoming a bit devalued in the way everyone’s suddenly a narcissist for occasionally being a bit selfish. Someone called me a people pleaser at a group dinner the other night cos I asked if anyone wanted the last piece of shared starter rather than just taking it myself. Then someone else said “Waitingforthesunnydays is the least likely person in the world to be a people pleaser”! Amazingly two insults at the opposite end of the spectrum that were equally insulting! I don’t think I’m a people pleaser. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do unless it’s for family or close friends who’ve done a lot for me, in which case I do it cos I care. I only make an effort to make people like me if I like them and want their company. I smile a lot though, and am always polite and friendly to people, unless they’re dicks or they give me a reason not to. At a party I’m not a mingler, I prefer to hang out with people I know well and whose company I know I enjoy. If I felt someone didn’t like me and I didn’t know why (in say, a work setting) it would bother me though. Not sure I’d make loads of effort to try and make them like me but I’d be a bit miffed about it. Am I a people pleaser? Are you a people pleaser? How do you know? What do you think made you that way? How would you define it? Do you think you become less of a people pleaser as you get older?

Well, yes exactly, so she was never a people pleaser in the first place so I don’t know why you think it’s “gone too far”?

She sounds rude and horrible to me, nothing to do with people pleasing at all

@TerracottaBowl - it's so counterproductive, isn't it?

I used to have a friend who thought it was rude to ask for what she wanted. She was constantly affronted than no one could just intuit what she needed and offer. They were just supposed to work it out through obscure hints and oblique comments - or frigging ESP.

It was a nightmare.

Weird you can’t see how shockingly rude, self absorbed, inconsiderate, selfish and unpleasant your friend is @Waitingforthesunnydays

“People pleaser” it’s like that vomit inducing “I am too nice” I sometimes see on mumsnet. I always think “I very very much doubt it”

Or they are very traumatised - they know what they want but daren't say it. However once one is an adult it's encumbent on us to do something about it.

In SIL's case, her misogynistic, domineering father had a lot to answer for.

I think 'I'm a people-pleaser' involves less self-delusion than 'I'm too nice'.

A people pleaser isn't actually 'nice' in the usual sense. She (because it's more usually a she) doesn't do things for other people from a free choice, out of generosity and kindness.

She does things for other people because she thinks saying no will make them dislike her, and in the belief that doing things for them will make people value her, because her self-esteem is too poor to think people will value her just for her company.

She's exchanging, in her head, services for friendship.

Which means that she often chooses people with problems and needs she can fulfil (childcare, lending money, lifts, an endless shoulder to cry on). Someone with no needs is no use to her because they don't 'need' her.

She is also often fuming with concealed resentment about 'not being appreciated' when the people she believes are her friends (because she has done things for them) don't reciprocate in kind, because she has presented herself to them as someone without needs, a human service animal. She often doesn't even like or respect these people she devotes herself to helping, but she turns herself into whatever they need anyway, and says 'My problem is I'm too nice, I'm surrounded by users.'.

And yes, absolutely it comes from a set of scripts she's absorbed in childhood, but after a certain point, as an adult, you need to learn that these beliefs are untrue, and holding you back from healthy, reciprocal friendships.

Or you don't, and you spend your life looking for people who 'need' you for what you can do for them.

We can get all Freudian about it but to me it seems like “people pleasers”please who they want to please at the detriment of those in their life they should genuinely want to “please”.

Your mother a case in point @TerracottaBowl

I find they'll take sides with one person and then go and take sides with the other person too.

This is why I don't trust them.

The best description of a people pleaser I’ve seen is that people are actually pleasing with their personality and behaviour.

I’ve seen quite a few people describe themselves as people pleasers when in fact they lack self awareness about how they are perceived or are emotionally immature and quite intense or can be demanding and pretty controlling of their friends. There really is not a group of people around them who are pleased by their behaviour.

I'm definitely a people pleaser. In the worst case scenario you can be an enabler as it's very difficult to say no to people.

I have rejection sensitive dysphoria so I feel the need to make sure nobody says anything against me. I also suffer severe anxiety that I will be shunned or not loved if I don't do things for others.

I guess it's pretty messed up. It means I find it hard to express the things I want. Until it boils over and I get upset because nobody has read my mind about my needs and wants.

But that not what ‘people pleaser’ means. If you just happen to be pleasing to other people by being genuinely pleasant, generous and nice to be around there’s no issue. The person is happy, and feels free to refuse to do favours if it doesn’t suit them, because the ‘friendships’ don’t rely on their services . The people around them are happy, too. No one is expecting favours or taking a helping hand for granted. No one is seething with silent resentment, because their unspoken needs haven’t been intuited.

The problem with actual people-pleasers is that their self-esteem is poor, they’re afraid to say no to anyone, regardless of whether they like or respect the person, and they choose, over and over, the discomfort of silently fuming at endlessly giving lifts, doing free childcare, being a listening ear, rather than the discomfort of saying no.

I’m working on my people pleasing

its not a good thing- it’s about telling people what they want to hear rather than what you think or feel. It’s something you do when threatened to get rid of the threat/ uncomfortable feeling, in the moment. It’s an unsophisticated way to deal with normal situations

I’m more pointing to the fact that many people self describe as people pleasers when they are very far from pleasing other people.

It is up there with empath in the level of lack of self awareness of people who use it from my experience.

Yes -- you're entirely right about that. No one is pleased in this scenario.

It’s not for that reason. The reason they may not use people pleasing behaviour on spouses or children is because they are safe people, who do not threaten them.
It’s safe to be natural around them.

when they people please, it’s with people who aren’t safe.

In my experience, it's because they see their spouses and children as aspects of themselves, meaning they don't need to be pleased, just as the people-pleaser will never treat their own wishes as in any way important.

The logic is 'Other people are always more important than me, and you are my child so you are also worth nothing compared to other people. I will always please the other people, and you need to accept that this is normal.'

@TerracottaBowl @Moretomatospls I think you’re coming from a place of thinking of specific people with specific behaviours that might not even be people pleasing.

people pleasing is a stress response. It is often unconscious and learned behaviour, but that’s where it comes from. It’s trying to diffuse the threat as quickly as possible and shut it down. It’s not narcissistic or self centring- these are different behaviours

You don’t sound like a people pleaser at all.

Dh is a classic adult child of an alcoholic people pleaser. He has to say yes to anyone who asks him to do anything, but then often gets irritated (behind closed doors, he is completely conflict avoidant) with the person who asked because it inconveniences him. He gets annoyed with them for asking because he has no boundaries and can’t say no.

Classic example, I once booked a family holiday and only found out two days before that Dh was also going away with friends that weekend. Apparently, his friends asked if he was free and he didn’t know how to say no, so he ended up agreeing to be in two places at the same time. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Thankfully, both in the UK only about 2 hours apart, so he ended up going with friends one night and joining us the second night, but it was such a stupidly typical thing for him to do. He should have just made a choice and done one or the other but he wanted to say yes to everything and be agreeable to everyone, but it just kinda f-ed up everyone’s plans really. 🙄

Reminds me of this-