To think that no one is really who they seem?

[YourPoisedGreyRobin]

It feels like so many people present a version of themselves that isn’t quite real - whether it’s on social media, at work, or even in friendships. Everyone has a hidden side, and sometimes, you only find out who they really are when things go wrong.

Have you ever been surprised by someone’s true nature? Or do you think most people are exactly who they appear to be?

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.

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.

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.

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.