I keep hearing this advice everywhere, especially when it comes to dating or making friends. But every time I try to just “be myself,” I either get ignored or people find me weird. Is this just generic advice people say to sound nice, or is there actually a deeper meaning to it?
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The deeper meaning is that if you actually want something meaningful, you have no choice but be yourself
You might be able to pretend to be different for a few dates, but nobody can do that forever…
Faking something to find friends is not a long term solution, why would you want to be friends who like some person thats not you?
That beeing said its still bad advice, if you act like an asshole, “just beeing you” means acting like an asshole, the advice assumes this “you” is actualy acting like a nice person, but many people dont realy know you good enough to judge that.
So instead try to learn and improve, find out why people dont like you and reflect on that, dont just do whatever pleases people but realy think about what you did that hurt people and think about if you should or shouldnt change that and act different.
“Be yourself” means don’t try to fake being someone you are not. But it also doesn’t mean “be the lowest effort version of yourself who scratches your balls in public and talks at people about whatever niche hobby you have regardless of they want to listen or not”
Be the best version of “you”, don’t be something you are not.
Who else are you going to be? Everyone is already taken.
There are a lot of reasons someone can be unappealing to others. One of them is inauthenticity. “Be yourself” is good advice for the people who aren’t authentic.
You need to find out what you’re doing wrong. Get some trusted people to provide you with feedback.
For myself, I have a couple friends who could give me advice as well as a therapist. They’ve told me that there are things I can do to make mgself more palatable to other people.
my guess is that you haven’t found your audience. I’m like you. people consider me odd but stick me with academics and I’m like a magnet. people will go out of their way to interact with me. you need to find the herd where you can be yourself
I had the same thinking as you until I started therapy. Was diagnosed autistic adhd and realized how much masking I was doing. Now I don’t do that and yes a lot of people think I’m strange and odd but those who don’t have become some of my closest friends
It’s less about being yourself and more about not giving a shit about what others think
The point of this advice is not to fake something you’re not. Faking a personality usually creates a situation where everyone loses in the long run.
The advice does not mean that you shouldn’t work on growing as a person.
I try to be myself but it sorta turns into ACTING myself, and it’s quite the distinction and makes me seem disingenuous probably lol
“Being yourself,” is not a strategy that increases your chances of meeting people. Being yourself is how you end up with the right people.
The people who like you for who you are.
I think the biggest drawback is that you are not born with a precise knowledge of what will make you deeply happy. Most people, at some point in their life, fall for easy pleasure traps, from various addictions to video games or laziness, which explain why most people may actually be better out following one of society ‘templates’ of what is a good life than just following their instincts, especially when they are young.
That does not mean that personal preference does not exist. For example, I realized I deeply need to work with nice and passionate people, and in organizations that stay at a human scale. At some point in my career I sacrificed 30% of my income to work in such environment (moving from elitist consulting to a factory). But I learned that the hard way trying other things and realizing I did not like them. My 20yo self did not know anything about this.
Be two people.
Be yourself, but carry around a version of you that makes polite and reasonable small talk, understands social cues, has a general sense of average urgency about most tasks, doesn’t say everything you’re thinking instantly and has good hygiene.
Allow that version of you to introduce you as yourself, and remind people that you carry this societally normal version of yourself everywhere you go, and you can deploy it at any time it’s needed. Assure them equally that you know how to instantly put that version away and go back to being yourself.
Oh wait, no, that’s not it either…
I like the phrase be yourself. I be myself now (after most my life trying to change and fit in) and yeah heaps of people want nothing to do with me cos I’m too weird and quirky, but those few who stick around love me for me and make it all worth it. You will find people that like/love you for being yourself. It can just take a while sometimes ❤️
To me, that is an appeal to both authenticity and self-love.
And to me, it does not include or imply thinking about how others want to see you or interact with you.
In a social setting, this is a rubbish ask. In general, it’s how you can not go crazy in a world like this.
Two reasons
Because you don’t need to be with someone who aren’t interested in real you.
If you’re being yourself and you’re not getting a good response then you need to look within and see what other people see as yourself. I’m all for people not having ego and doing what makes them happy, which in essence is being themselves, but if you are being yourself and get shunned by everyone, you need to take a good hard look at yourself.
It’s bad generic advice. The people giving it generally think that there’s nothing off-putting about how you interact with people they assume you’re just lacking confidence or something else
I found the only way to get good advices was to actually go “Here’s what happened” Describe the date in detail and be told afterwards “OH yeah mentioning that you know what your wedding looks like on the first date is off putting”
Tell me more about how you are naturally.
If you’re just quirky, then by all means, keep being yourself. It’ll help you find your people.
If you’re rude or thoughtless or unkind, do some deep work on relationality and learn to balance your needs with care and curiosity for others.
There are more options than these two, but I’m betting you’re offending people if being yourself isn’t working out for you. Time to figure out what’s going on!
You could always improve yourself if being who you are now isn’t working for you. Introspection can be hard but rewarding. If you can identify some things you think aren’t healthy and may be holding you back and work on them, it may help improve your quality of life.
This advice hinges on you not being surrounded by assholes, which is always a possibility. I like to ask myself if something is a ‘me’ issue or a ‘you’ issue. If it’s a ‘you’ issue, there’s not much to be done on my part.
Maybe it worked for them?
It’s supposed to emphasize that you can work on how you present yourself, but you should never just stsrt lying about who you are to fit in. There’s a difference. If you have a weird hobby maybe don’t bring it up as the very first thing, maybe be humorous about it and acknowledge that some people find it strange. But don’t pretend like you don’t have it and look down on people that do
Because if you have to fake who you are to be in a relationship whatever type of relationship that is, it is going to be miserable and will end up falling apart in the end because it’s too hard to maintain. That said, it doesn’t mean to just let your base instincts to take over or anything. We should ideally reflect on our flaws and strive to improve on them so that what it means to be yourself means to be a better person.
Yeah I mean… it’s “be yourself” until you do something awkward or speak up on something people don’t want to hear, etc. “but not like that!!!” lol. It’s a nice sentiment but there’s not really a deep meaning to it since most people don’t mean it. It’s very generic advice.
If you want /actual/ friends, there’s no other choice. If you’re pretending to be someone that’s not you, then whoever the people you’re dating or friends with aren’t actually friends with you. They’re friends with someone else you’re pretending to be.
Also keeping up a facade is exhausting in the longterm, like let’s say you meet someone and marry that person and you’ve pretended to either like or not like something, now you’ve gotta keep that up forever or risk that they won’t like you anymore once they find out
This is Merica, you have to fake anything and everything to get a good job, friends, relationship. Minute real you slips up people are revolted. Welcome to the Matrix.
“Be yourself. Unless you suck. Then be someone else”
That’s not to do with being yourself. It means you need to do some work on yourself. Whether your physiology, your approach to opposite gender or social skills, it means you are lacking.
Being yourself is about not being fake. Don’t be matching someone’s personality/mirroring them to be liked. That comes from low self esteem and people pleasing. Work on those things.
Human interaction is a balancing act between being authentic and learning how to translate who you are into a language that other people understand.
Be yourself unless yourself sucks
I’m curious what you think the alternative is, fake something you’re not then try to keep up a mask the rest of your life? Inevitably break up once you’re done pretending and they realize you weren’t who they thought you were?
It’s good advice, doesn’t mean it makes actually finding a good partner any easier, it’ll save you time with the wrong people though.
Because not being yourself takes tremendous energy, and you ultimately wont like the long term outcome
This doesn’t mean: don’t improve on your self.
“Be yourself” is good advice,. but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
You still need to behave in context to what’s going on around you. If get invited to a high class restaurant where it’s expected you’ll dress up nice and act a certain way,.. then you should probably do that.
“Be Yourself” also doesn’t automatically mean you’ll fit in with every group. You still need to “find your tribe”.
“Be Yourself” is just another way of saying “be honest and genuine”. (don’t be fake)
I would argue you don’t know yourself yet. Give it time and stop looking for anyone other than you.
Misrepresentation of self is never helpful in the long run.
However, true sell that doesn’t work also isn’t helpful in the long run.
You’re missing one very critical component: change self.
Many want to pretend to be different people to gain social buy in, admiration, attention, a love interest, etc. In many people’s minds, the game is faking it to sway other people’s behavior.
However, the true wisdom is in listening and observing others and self. Reflect on society and upon one’s own being, and make some profound choices on deciding who you want to be, what are your ideals, morals, and viewpoint on life. Change self. Don’t persuade others. Persuade yourself to become something better.
Look inward and become different.
I think the truth is that when people consider how to answer this question of how to make friends, Etc., they’re imagining the ideal person as the one asking it. Some one personable, relatively smart and non-threateningly good-looking who can essentially fake whatever others need to see to feel at-ease around them. Ofc, most of us don’t fit that bill so any answer like be your self seems absurd.
The truth is that it’s, generally, harder to connect with others because we all want tailor-made interactions and relationships now. The sometime tedium and work of building, maintaining and tolerating tends to defeat most before they even get started.
You, personally, have to be the one to start with a thing and stick with it, despite what anyone else is doing. Those left with you in the end will make the best friend–and otherwise–prospects imo.
Just remember that this stuff was never easy.
The trick is to not care about the response. If you care you are just trying on a character to see if it gets approval
That’s bad advice. Dont be yourself. Do that shit behind closed doors at home.
It doesn’t mean being yourself will win everyone over, it means being yourself will win the right people over – people who like you exactly as you are so you don’t have to put on a show.
If you haven’t found ANYONE like that EVER and you’re older than 25, you might just kinda be an asshole… Look into that.
People just say all types of gobbledygook.