AIBU to be surprised how many people on MN seem to be people pleasers?

[Mnk711]

Granted probably people who are people pleasers will post their dilemmas more often on here than people who are able to set healthy boundaries, as people pleasers are likely to encounter more problems they can't resolve themselves. But I'm shocked how many people seem unable to tell other people the truth about their behaviour being selfish, unpleasant, and rude. Are there really this many people who in real life are incapable of standing up and being counted?

I find it really sad that there are so many threads of people being walked all over by 'friends' or 'D'Ps who treat them horribly and OPs can't defend themselves. Or people who are surrounded by other people pleasers/those who just want an easy life who won't stand up in defence of what's right. And the same IRL - friends with a terrible boss or work colleague who everyone just tiptoes around and won't speak up.

AIBU to be surprised at the seeming prevalence of people pleasers?

I think I knew that about your mother from other people-pleaser threads, @Thepeopleversuswork. I NC every week or so, but we’ve chatted before on them — I think the daughters of people-pleasing mothers, who have had to undo all the friendship scripts they were brought up with, are on very high-alert around people-pleasing behaviours, because we see over the course of a lifetime just how self-sabotaging they are.

I can absolutely see, and pity, the roots of my mother’s chronic people-pleasing, but, like my sisters, I’ve had to work so hard to get past those childhood scripts, and deal with her lifelong loneliness, and her unconscious fury that people don’t give her the attention she gives them. And her bafflement that she has three daughters who say ‘no’ a lot but have lots of long-standing friendships.

Im a ex-people pleaser. People pleasing imo comes from feeling fear of disapproval which is the result of having an emotionally volatile parent.

You learn to asses other people's feelings before you acknowledge your own feelings, so you can preemptively adapt your behaviour to reduce the risk of triggering anger or violence from the other person. Then after a while it just becomes an ingrained habit, no different from having an English accent, where your default is to minimise your own needs even when you aren't in danger. In an example of "Should we have Thai or Indian food?" the realistic answer is that a very ingrained people pleaser will genuinely have no preference because they haven't ever cultivated their own preferences in many areas of life.

Boundaries require assertive communication. I've seen so many threads on here from people pleasers who then get passive aggressively angry and upset because people are suggesting to put healthy boundaries in place but they cant/wont do it out of fear. But at the same time, their current situation is unbearable too. You cant have it both ways unfortunately. Therefore, it just goes round and round and round never changing.
Agree with this.
There's a lot of threads that can be paraphrased as "I'm not happy in this situation, this person is expecting a lot og me and I've gone along with it for a long time. I don't want to keep doing it but I also don't want to have to say no, don't want to communicate with them about it, and also want a course of action/magic words that will ensure that they only respond in the way I want to because I don't want to feel like the bad guy/I don't want them to be disappointed/I don't want to have to deal with the fallout". On those threads there's often a lot of advice from lots of different posters, all with slightly different ways of approaching a situation, and the OP will shoot lots of them down, make excuses and sometimes flounce because now they've been given lots of suggestions, they weren't actually asking for advice they just wanted to be validated moaning.

@ThePlatypusAlwaysTriumphs I don't think it makes you a terrible person or worthy of contempt but it does mean for a lot of people your behaviour could be challenging. I appreciate not wanting conflict but for example where you state you are bad at disciplining people, surely that causes conflict with other members of staff who see others being let off despite bad behaviour or who have to pick up the slack for lazy people.

I'd just see it as however we behave has consequences for us, good and bad, and some people will love certain behaviours and others will loathe them. For me understanding who someone is and what they stand for is important so I find it very hard when people can't communicate that
Equally I know some people feel I'm overly forthright and would prefer I sugar coated things more, whilst others prefer clarity and honesty. I think it's just important to understand who you are, how your approach to life affects you and others, and adjust (or not!) it according to what you want to achieve. [Adjust your communication style I mean- not yourself!]