Unmasking

Relationships should be built on authenticity, not artifice. This requires us to present our true selves and be open and vulnerable to criticism as well as recognize and accept others for who they are.

We all walk into situations looking to make a great first impression. I remember going into an interview with a law firm right out of college. At the time, I was still living on crackers and peanut butter, driving a beat-up Buick Skyhawk and my closet was sparse with the few clothes I owned from High School that still fit.

I needed this job and was excited about the interview but didn’t own a single suit. However, I managed to walk in looking like a million bucks, in an expensive suit and shoes I had borrowed from a friend’s mom and got the job. Then I showed up the first day of work in a worn, slightly to short skirt, blouse and beat up flats.

The HR Director that hired me was in shock. Here she thought she was getting a polished professional and instead a young woman with no money & not a single business appropriate outfit showed up. I was immediately called into her office and given a warning and told to come back the next day dressed as I had been for the interview. Rather than share with her my true situation I walked out ashamed and embarrassed.

Luckily, my friends mom took me shopping, showed me how to work one skirt, one pair of slacks, a business jacket and a couple of shirts into a weeks’ worth of different looks and loaned me the money to purchase everything so that I wouldn’t lose my job before I could even collect the first paycheck.

It’s common to pull out all the stops when we want to impress someone. There is nothing wrong with presenting our best selves. Just make sure it isn’t at the cost of creating an entirely untrue narrative about yourself that you can’t pull off.

A great example of creating a first impression narrative to impress and show others what we think they want to see… horribly backfiring.

Ever read online dating profiles? Here’s one (abbreviated) that roped me into a date:
Tall handsome Italian gentleman and professional chef.

Great! Sign me up for THAT date.

Who showed up?

Angry midget, still married, no job, homeless couch surfer who when asked where he went to culinary school replied, ‘I didn’t but I cook for people sometimes.’

So, I didn’t have to dig very deep to realize that the online narrative this guy had built for himself was false because the dude that showed up was so clearly not the one, he portrayed himself to be in his profile.

But what about when the idealized version of someone is far better hidden and harder to identify? People craft sometimes craft completely plausible narratives to support their facade.

I’m a self-proclaimed OCD neat freak. No hiding it. My spice cabinet is organized alphabetically.

So when I was invited to dinner at the house of a man I had begun dating he ran home before I before I got there and loaded 15 giant garbage bags full of crap that was lying around his room and hid them in the garage. If his kitchen was a mess or the bathroom so dirty at times I would have to squat to pee and I questioned him on it, he would blame his roommates. It wasn’t until we moved in together that I clued into the fact that his roommates weren’t the only slobs living in that house.

I’m sure you can imagine how incompatible we were sharing a space. Had I ignored the signs along the way that clearly indicated he wasn’t being honest? Absolutely. Not only did I want him to be who he said he was but I think he wanted to be as well. And then once I had committed to living with him and the facade, he had created came crashing down, I still stuck around thinking that maybe I could change him. Let’s just say that didn’t work out so well for either of us.

Relationships should be built on authenticity, not artifice. This requires us to present our true selves and be open and vulnerable to criticism as well as recognize and accept others for who they are.

If you are comfortable in chaos and don’t prioritize a neat and tidy space then own that. There are plenty of people that also feel their time and energy are better spent on other things rather than cleaning. My now grown sons laugh and say my home to them feels like a museum and they have no intention of wasting time vacuuming their apartments, picking clothes up off the floor or dusting when there is so much fun to be had in the world. They call me a neat freak (which is true) and I shake my head in disbelief that they can relax in all that mess. That doesn’t make either of us wrong or weird, just different and we can each own our own natures and respect one another’s choices.

Creating a false narrative helps no one and generally backfires.

Looking back it would have probably been a good idea to let the HR Director at the law firm know, that as a recent graduate, I didn’t own much in the way of business professional dress and asked for some guidelines as to what would be okay to wear the first few weeks until I received my first paycheck and was able to go buy a few suits.

The homeless, out of work, still married, angry midget should have just owned up to who he really was. True, he probably wouldn’t have gotten many dates but his time would have been better spent changing his situation so that he could love and accept himself enough to be open, honest and upfront in his profile rather than bamboozling people into first dates that were sure to go nowhere.

The truth is that criticism is much easier to stomach when it relates to a construct, we can separate ourselves from vs. our true selves. No big deal if I skipped his profile because it wasn’t real anyway. But put the truth out there and no one bites…well that cuts deep because suddenly it feels like a real rejection of who you are.

Become aware of your own masks and walls that you bring to new relationships and learn to love yourself, own your truth, and present yourself in the most honest way possible. It makes for a much better outcome long term.

Remember that none of us is perfect nor should we try to be. Perfect is not relatable and unattainable. We all have flaws, insecurities, areas of ourselves we are working on, so own and be you!

Keep in mind that we all want to be loved and accepted and so often that leads us to present ourselves in a way that we think will please others. So, don’t accept things at face value. Dive deep, ask tough questions and be vulnerable yourself so that others can feel comfortable enough to share themselves fully as well.

Oh, and one more thing. Please don’t turn a blind eye to those glimpses of someone’s truth that may not match up to the idealized version of them you have blindly accepted or fashioned in your own mind. Know yourself. Share your truth and freely accept others as they are or move on because baby…. you are not going to change them.

#relationships #impressions #dating #growth #truth #narratives #vulnerability #criticism #ashamed