Do you think other people see you for who you really are?

[noname223]

I think way too much what other people think of me. Most of them probably do not care about me. Some people thought of me as a boring careerist, some think of me as (wanna be) smartass, victim of horrible child abuse, self-centred, emotionally cold towards them, clinically insane, lonely, insanely intelligent, insecure, socially awkward, mysterious etc.

I could say a lot about all of that. I think I am broken person. The child abuse and the bullying literally broke me. Women do not like insecure, sad careerists who seem to live only for college. Noone in college knows how thoughtful I am. Not even my college friends. I have the feeling the people who read my threads on here have a way more accurate picture of me than the people in college. In college all the people only know my facade.
I am not that smart I only stuy part-time. I think some people consider me unfriendly and cold. I ghosted a lot of people in my life. I feel so ashamed for how weak I am. That I only study-part and because of so much more. Especially when people brag about their great life I simply cannot endure that. I rather quit any contact. Moreover I have so much anxiety when I am at college. I am scared of social interactions so people consider it cold when I dodge longer conversations.

It hurts so much when people consider you insane just because they met you in a bad moment. I turn often a little bit psychotic when I have my first interaction with a crush and it ruined so fucking much. It happened 3 times so far. It destroyed a lot.

However I think most of the people who I thought of when I wrote this thread barely care about me. Even if I killed myself most of them would not give any fuck. It is useless to worry what strangers think of you. Usually they are very superficial. But I am probably the same with most of the strangers that I meet. Our human mind prefers to think in categories to simplify our environment in order to better assess situations. Without that we would lose the control to properly interact with people. However we should be at the same time educated about human biases and be sceptical of typical prejudices. This is no excuse for clinging to narrow minded stereotypes.

 

[derpyderpins]

I want to address some of what you said, but I'll start with an answer to your question: nobody sees the entirety of who I am. My fiancé and closest friends get closest, but they see different sides of me. That's okay. We wear masks/put on personas because who we "really are" is messy. It's like putting on your clothes and taking a shower. That doesn't mean they don't care, or if they saw me on a lazy sick day where I didn't shower and was in old PJs they would hold it against me, but I care about them so I try to take care of myself and make myself "presentable" for them.

Now, if I can hit on your post. I can see a lot of a younger me in your words. (Coincidentally, someone posting on /ss years ago when it was on reddit.) In high school + undergrad I always tested as an INTJ. Smartest kid in my little pond, high IQ, etc. I didn't have the social success I wanted. I was a smartass, which amused a lot of people, but there were always times I'd take it too far. I messed up friendships, and never got anywhere with my first 10 or so crushes because of overthinking and being desperate and being dreary and introspective and wearing my disappointment in their lack of interest on my sleeve.

Now, looking back, it was probably never that bad. I really do relate to your post: the extremely critical and in-depth analysis of yourself, your motivations, and how others perceive you. You should know, however, that we are usually much harder on ourselves than others are hard on us. (And if it is the reverse, that person is not worth your time.) You are struggling a lot with inner turmoil, which if you've gone through abuse and bullying makes sense. That's absolutely okay. You are fixated on the idea of "intelligence," and I know you know it is something you need to move on from. I'm sure you're smart. So are lots of other people. Even if you are the "smartest" from an IQ, brain processing power standpoint, that really only matters to the extent you can utilize it to provide skills and services that benefit others. Otherwise, no one cares. I know you know this. You are clinging to it because you aren't happy with other aspects of your personality.

Here are words you used to describe yourself: smartass, emotionally cold, clinically insane, lonely, insecure, socially awkward, psychotic, anxious. You also call yourself "insanely intelligent" and "mysterious." Such extremes in both directions. You sound like a smarter version of sherlock holmes crossed with rick sanchez, holden caulfield, and some sort of supervillain. Then, you separately describe yourself as a careerist who seems to live only for college, basically a boring joe shmoe. Do you see the untenability of this self identity? It's a mess. There's no way you are all of those things. It sounds to me like you are very unsatisfied with some aspects of yourself, so you are overcompensating by building a façade for yourself, the "mysterious genius." You show this façade to yourself just as you do other people so you don't have to face who you are.

My recommendation to you is to focus on your understanding of your own turmoil and use it to develop powerful empathy and patience for the people around you. Your "intelligence" leads you to contemplating the human experience. That can be a very good thing, but you have to use it positively. Start with picturing someone exactly like you; someone who posted your exact post. How would you treat them? Would you be patient and hear them out? If you wouldn't . . . do you think it would be better if you did?

It is useless to worry what strangers think of you. Usually they are very superficial. But I am probably the same with most of the strangers that I meet. Our human mind prefers to think in categories to simplify our environment in order to better assess situations. Without that we would lose the control to properly interact with people. However we should be at the same time educated about human biases and be sceptical of typical prejudices. This is no excuse for clinging to narrow minded stereotypes.

Seriously, when I read old suicide notes I've written or stuff I wrote in old notebooks, it sounds like this. I swear I'm not saying that to put you down, only to try and relate to you. It's very intellectual, it's thought-provoking, and it has no point and helps no one. You can dig deeper and get to a positive, healthy conclusion.

It is useless to worry what strangers think of you. Usually they are very superficial. But I am probably the same with most of the strangers that I meet.

So here we get a huge generalization about people: they are superficial so who cares what they think of you. Whether people are superficial or not seems irrelevant to me, but I would say what other people think of you is almost all that matters in this world. Now, maybe we need to differentiate strangers from close confidants, but the point still stands. We are social creatures, and like I said we are usually overly hard on ourselves, making outside opinions a much better metric for how we are doing. Look at it in some practical instances first:

• What your professors/boss think of your performance determines your success
• What hiring managers think of you determine what jobs you can get
• what women think of you determine your relationship prospects
• what strangers/fringe contacts think of you affects how they treat you
• what your friends think about you affects how close you can get

Then consider that - like it or not - we need relationships to find happiness. Again, people are social by nature.

So why do you say "it is useless to worry what strangers think of you?" It's from rejection, trauma, and your inner conflicts. Understand that while no one has gone through exactly what you have, almost everyone is self-conscious, and similarly self-obsessed because they are so concerned with their image. Knowing what you do, try to take it easy on them. Listen, be patient, be gentle. You can be socially awkward and lonely while still being good. Own your awkwardness. Everyone likes humility. Simply smiling at someone can make a big difference. If you are being awkward, say "I'm sorry, I'm being a little awkward right now, please bear with me." Good people will be patient back to you. Those are the people you keep around.

You can become a person with better character, and then you can start to become comfortable. It takes a long time. Don't be so hard on yourself.

 

[sserafim]

I think way too much what other people think of me. Most of them probably do not care about me. Some people thought of me as a boring careerist, some think of me as (wanna be) smartass, victim of horrible child abuse, self-centred, emotionally cold towards them, clinically insane, lonely, insanely intelligent, insecure, socially awkward, mysterious etc.

I could say a lot about all of that. I think I am broken person. The child abuse and the bullying literally broke me. Women do not like insecure, sad careerists who seem to live only for college. Noone in college knows how thoughtful I am. Not even my college friends. I have the feeling the people who read my threads on here have a way more accurate picture of me than the people in college. In college all the people only know my facade.
I am not that smart I only stuy part-time. I think some people consider me unfriendly and cold. I ghosted a lot of people in my life. I feel so ashamed for how weak I am. That I only study-part and because of so much more. Especially when people brag about their great life I simply cannot endure that. I rather quit any contact. Moreover I have so much anxiety when I am at college. I am scared of social interactions so people consider it cold when I dodge longer conversations.

It hurts so much when people consider you insane just because they met you in a bad moment. I turn often a little bit psychotic when I have my first interaction with a crush and it ruined so fucking much. It happened 3 times so far. It destroyed a lot.

However I think most of the people who I thought of when I wrote this thread barely care about me. Even if I killed myself most of them would not give any fuck. It is useless to worry what strangers think of you. Usually they are very superficial. But I am probably the same with most of the strangers that I meet. Our human mind prefers to think in categories to simplify our environment in order to better assess situations. Without that we would lose the control to properly interact with people. However we should be at the same time educated about human biases and be sceptical of typical prejudices. This is no excuse for clinging to narrow minded stereotypes.

No because no one truly knows me. They only know and see the version of me that I show them. I don't even know myself, let alone my true self.

 

[noname223]

I want to address some of what you said, but I'll start with an answer to your question: nobody sees the entirety of who I am. My fiancé and closest friends get closest, but they see different sides of me. That's okay. We wear masks/put on personas because who we "really are" is messy. It's like putting on your clothes and taking a shower. That doesn't mean they don't care, or if they saw me on a lazy sick day where I didn't shower and was in old PJs they would hold it against me, but I care about them so I try to take care of myself and make myself "presentable" for them.

Now, if I can hit on your post. I can see a lot of a younger me in your words. (Coincidentally, someone posting on /ss years ago when it was on reddit.) In high school + undergrad I always tested as an INTJ. Smartest kid in my little pond, high IQ, etc. I didn't have the social success I wanted. I was a smartass, which amused a lot of people, but there were always times I'd take it too far. I messed up friendships, and never got anywhere with my first 10 or so crushes because of overthinking and being desperate and being dreary and introspective and wearing my disappointment in their lack of interest on my sleeve.

Now, looking back, it was probably never that bad. I really do relate to your post: the extremely critical and in-depth analysis of yourself, your motivations, and how others perceive you. You should know, however, that we are usually much harder on ourselves than others are hard on us. (And if it is the reverse, that person is not worth your time.) You are struggling a lot with inner turmoil, which if you've gone through abuse and bullying makes sense. That's absolutely okay. You are fixated on the idea of "intelligence," and I know you know it is something you need to move on from. I'm sure you're smart. So are lots of other people. Even if you are the "smartest" from an IQ, brain processing power standpoint, that really only matters to the extent you can utilize it to provide skills and services that benefit others. Otherwise, no one cares. I know you know this. You are clinging to it because you aren't happy with other aspects of your personality.

Here are words you used to describe yourself: smartass, emotionally cold, clinically insane, lonely, insecure, socially awkward, psychotic, anxious. You also call yourself "insanely intelligent" and "mysterious." Such extremes in both directions. You sound like a smarter version of sherlock holmes crossed with rick sanchez, holden caulfield, and some sort of supervillain. Then, you separately describe yourself as a careerist who seems to live only for college, basically a boring joe shmoe. Do you see the untenability of this self identity? It's a mess. There's no way you are all of those things. It sounds to me like you are very unsatisfied with some aspects of yourself, so you are overcompensating by building a façade for yourself, the "mysterious genius." You show this façade to yourself just as you do other people so you don't have to face who you are.

My recommendation to you is to focus on your understanding of your own turmoil and use it to develop powerful empathy and patience for the people around you. Your "intelligence" leads you to contemplating the human experience. That can be a very good thing, but you have to use it positively. Start with picturing someone exactly like you; someone who posted your exact post. How would you treat them? Would you be patient and hear them out? If you wouldn't . . . do you think it would be better if you did?



Seriously, when I read old suicide notes I've written or stuff I wrote in old notebooks, it sounds like this. I swear I'm not saying that to put you down, only to try and relate to you. It's very intellectual, it's thought-provoking, and it has no point and helps no one. You can dig deeper and get to a positive, healthy conclusion.



So here we get a huge generalization about people: they are superficial so who cares what they think of you. Whether people are superficial or not seems irrelevant to me, but I would say what other people think of you is almost all that matters in this world. Now, maybe we need to differentiate strangers from close confidants, but the point still stands. We are social creatures, and like I said we are usually overly hard on ourselves, making outside opinions a much better metric for how we are doing. Look at it in some practical instances first:

• What your professors/boss think of your performance determines your success
• What hiring managers think of you determine what jobs you can get
• what women think of you determine your relationship prospects
• what strangers/fringe contacts think of you affects how they treat you
• what your friends think about you affects how close you can get

Then consider that - like it or not - we need relationships to find happiness. Again, people are social by nature.

So why do you say "it is useless to worry what strangers think of you?" It's from rejection, trauma, and your inner conflicts. Understand that while no one has gone through exactly what you have, almost everyone is self-conscious, and similarly self-obsessed because they are so concerned with their image. Knowing what you do, try to take it easy on them. Listen, be patient, be gentle. You can be socially awkward and lonely while still being good. Own your awkwardness. Everyone likes humility. Simply smiling at someone can make a big difference. If you are being awkward, say "I'm sorry, I'm being a little awkward right now, please bear with me." Good people will be patient back to you. Those are the people you keep around.

You can become a person with better character, and then you can start to become comfortable. It takes a long time. Don't be so hard on yourself.

Thanks for that reply you put more work in it than me for my initial post. You gave me a lot to think about. I am quite sure I will think about your words for some time. I have some disagreements but I have to make my mind up because it could be a defense mechanism against unpleasant truths.

Thanks for sharing those thought-provoking ideas.

 

[Sprite_Geist]

No. Many years ago, when I had a few people who I considered friends, I would have said that they knew me fairly well. Currently though I have hardly any personal connections, and the only people who I see or know the most are barely acquaintances; individuals that I walk past in the neighborhood for example. They do not know me at all; I do not fit in any group around, so they judge me at face value. It sometimes can make me feel very angry, because I try to make an active effort to not negatively judge others - including strangers - but others will oftentimes judge me for the smallest reasons such as being quiet, or social class.

 

[Scythe]

I never told anyone a complete true version of me without any omition, so noone can possibly know what I am at the very core.

However, I think if a bunch of people who prpbably will never meet realistically came together and put together the pieces they can get a pretty good idea of what I am on the inside.

 

[szk]

Well, no. But if I did, I would be called crazy.