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Welcome to the Personal Development for Smart People Forums, the place for lively, intelligent discussion of all personal growth issues -- physical, mental, financial, social, emotional, spiritual, and more. You're currently viewing as a guest, which gives you limited read-only access. By joining our free community, you'll be able to post your own messages, access many members-only features, see the new messages posted since your last visit, and of course remove this header message. Registration is fast, simple, and free, so please join today. If you arrived here from a search engine, you may want to explore the main site first, which includes hundreds of deep and insightful articles on a variety of personal development topics. |
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My natural personality is uninhibited and doesn't crave attention, but people downright don't like it. I can't pretend to know exactly why but I guess it's just because it's too "warm" or enthusiastic or positive or something. This "natural" personality is pretty bubbly, warm, optimistic. Think Ned Flanders. Why does everybody hate Ned Flanders? He seems like the happiest guy in Springfield, but for whatever reason people hate him for it. Quote:
Last edited by yossarian : 12-21-2007 at 11:27 AM. |
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So does this mean you can't be happy, alive and enthusiastic? No ofcourse not, but first of all you have to hang out with the right people. People who are optimistic themselves, who love life. There are plenty of these folks out there, but if you only radiate your fake personalities you will also attract people matching those fake ones. Secondly, you don't have to have a "mask", you can have your own personality but then switch between certain degrees of it. For example: I really enjoy informal talks, having good laughs and just enjoying the things around me. But being in a business environment or around more serious folks, it's not always appropriate to shout out the best jokes and talk to everyone about how their holiday was. But that doesn't mean I can still smile and make some simple jokes in a conversation with someone. I can still talk about them in an informal way, but less obvious. It isn't like you have to be totally THIS in one situation and THAT in an other situation. But I recognize your problem, I did have many masks before aswell. Yet after a while, when I got more selfconfident, understood myself moer and enjoyed my own presence, I started finding my true personality and just be that which I wanted to be. It's a conscious choice, and what I've found out is that people either like me or they get annoyed by me, and that's just fine with me. Quote:
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| Thank you ma'am! I'm glad a woman came in and proved the opposite to be true. |
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People don't appreciate that reaction, so I repress myself. This leads people to think I'm shy. Quote:
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I basically avoid those situations. Quote:
Shy is where you have nothing to say because you don't want to express your real personality due to fear. Shy is when you get embarassed and stare at your feet because of all the times you've been degraded when you open yourself to social situations. I agree with the other poster (the musician, the ladies man who all the forum-women are fawning over) that there is a difference between shy and introversion. Shy is an expression of fear, introversion just means you enjoy your own company. My actual personality when I'm not feeling sorrowful (which happens to everybody from time to time) is sort of like an irreverent Ned Flanders. That is NOT sexy. Last edited by yossarian : 12-21-2007 at 12:15 PM. |
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| Here's a question for ya: If you need to enact your natural personality in order to meet the people who fit with your natural personality, how do you deal with the pain that accompanies your natural personality? Because that is my situation. If I act like myself around most people, I literally am bringing the pain upon myself because I'm just asking to be degraded and abused. To me the barrier is the pain. I need some advil or something until I'm able to find people who "fit" me. Cause right now I basically fake, or hide. Neither is a solution. |
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Of course there's a difference between shy and introvert. I'm talking about shy guys, those who are afraid of showing themselves as they are. And I repeat, many women find such guys cute. There's a guy I know from university who's shy. When I look at him, he blushes and looks out of the window and has trouble speaking. He's not in the slightest deep and artistic. He's a computer scientist thinking about programming all the time and his hobby is sports. And, you won't believe it, ALL girls I know at university are totally fond of that guy! I don't know if the reason is his fear or that his great personality shines through even though he's afraid to show it. In my eyes, it's the latter. Plus, fear is not something a man should be despised for. Maybe that's a male idea, that men have to be strong and show no fear. But women think differently about it. At least, many of them do. A man can be scared AND very attractive |
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| I used to be that guy. Here's the thing... the girls are "fond" of him but how many would actually take it to the next level? Girls tend to get with the guys they hate. You must have noticed this.. you have the violent rockstar who quite literally treats women like crap, and he is the guy women go home with. Then you have the "nice friend" sensitive guy who all the women say they like, but again, when push comes to shove he is left holding her purse while she has an exciting rendezvous with the violent jock. Here's the catch-22, if that computer scientist could work up the nerve to actually tell a girl how he feels, he would no longer be shy, and therefore no longer be cute. It's really not healthy behavior. I basically AM that guy, btw. I'm older now so it's much less pronounced (plus I've learned to be a great faker which I'm not proud of) but that is basically me and it's not a fun life. We computer scientists have a word for it, we call it the friend zone. It means unless we break out of that shy behavior we become 40-year-old virgins. Last edited by yossarian : 12-21-2007 at 12:39 PM. |
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That is just not true! Two girls I was studying with would have taken it to the next level with him immediately. (I don't know how many of the girls I did not talk to, but they were clearly fond of him as well) One of them even eagerly ran after him for quite a while. If I hadn't had a relationship at that time, I'd have tried too. The point is, that guy was too scared to let anyone come too close. Maybe he simply had no interest, but I guess if he had been interested he would have been too afraid to show it anyway. I have some male friends who are shy, when they tell me they're interested in a girl, sometimes even I would not have noticed... Quote:
edit: hey, yossarian: if (shyness > letting_come_close(someone) && wish_for_closeness == true) {return -1; } else {return 0; } shyness is not a bool, it's an unsigned int Last edited by Rose of Cairo : 12-21-2007 at 01:17 PM. |
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| How do you mean that exactly? |
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| I mean that if Ned Flanders openly acts like Ned Flanders, he gets abused. Now what Ned Flanders has that I don't have, is the courage to continue acting the way he does despite the abuse he receives. Ned Flanders doesn't even flinch. But I flinch. I just noticed you live in Germany. From what I've heard it's a much more compassionate atmosphere. You may not realize how incredibly brutal and materialistic the North American TypeA culture is. I hear what you say about shy guys and I can see how that would be true, I just have never actually seen it play out in a way where the shy guy gets the girl. Last edited by yossarian : 12-21-2007 at 01:52 PM. |
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| I think the point I was trying to make is that if the shy guy could allow more closeness, he would get more girls. It's often not the girls who are not interested but the shy guy who can't avail himself of the opportunity of letting it happen. It's not only talking about it or asking out, it has also a lot to do with body language. Shy guys tend to send many mixed signals, like "yes I'm interested, but I'm scared, and I want, but I don't want, and don't you come too close!" So what can a girl do in such a situation? Nothing but think "well... too bad..." We don't want to rape you either! It's true that I don't know how it is in America. I can speak only for (western) Europe. I don't know any Ned Flanders, would you please explain to me with words how you behave, and why this is doomed to be answered with abuse and degradation? |
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![]() When I'm in a comfortable place where I don't fear getting abused I am a pretty happy, outgoing, generous, hardworking, carefree person who laughs a lot and doesn't really worry about anything or take things very seriously. I also have a pretty powerful moral ethic and so I don't harm other beings or commit emotional violence, manipulate, lie. I'm very committed to pacifism and non-violence of all kinds. This means mental, emotional, physical and any kinds of indirect violence. I've been a vegetarian for years, and everything I do I think about longterm consequences and how it will effect the whole world. This means I don't do things like litter or smoke. I don't do these things because I aspire to be something or to look a certain way, I do them because they give me great joy and happiness. This joy and happiness, combined with pacifism and a strong moral code, seems to make me a big target for those who don't consider these things to be virtues. Homer Simpson abuses Ned Flanders in the same way that most people abuse me when I show them my true self. Last edited by yossarian : 12-21-2007 at 02:21 PM. |
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| I'm digging the moustache! Anyways, you're constantly focussing on the suffering of abuse and such. I don't know how this is for you in practical sense. But I do know I've been targetted for being myself for a loooongg time aswell. And then it just stopped, and that was the moment I stopped caring. Now in your area this can be very different, but then again, why don't you move to a better place where you have cool people around you who enjoy you for who you truly are? But I don't believe this is needed for you to just relax and enjoy your own personality. You say you don't do the things like pacifism to become something, but just because it gives you joy. Yet you change your personality to be accepted by others..... quite a big contrast going on right there. I can't be bothered by how others think of me and how I choose to act. I might ask people for feedback from time to time, but then I can chose whether or not I can work with that feedback. But if someone doesn't accept me for who I want to be, the contact is over. We are not here on the planet to be liked or accepted by others! The fact that you don't accept your own true personality is reflecting back to you in others. The non-caring attitude does SO MUCH about the way others respond to you. Stop taking **** from others when you are your true self. If others have problems with who you are, **** 'em and move on to better people! |
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| First I don't have any TV, and second I don't like the Simpsons. I always want to kick Homer's butt when I see him. (But I do love Futurama What you said about how you really are sounds all great to me! I don't see where the problem is. Who cares about what some Homer-like dumbasses think?? Tell them to get lost. Or move to Europe I don't understand why you change your way of being to please others. That's doing violence to yourself! Why do you inflict such a pain to yourself, if you're a pacifist and sensitive to emotional violence? You're inflicting pain and violating someone's personality. (your own, but that counts!) And I also think that you attract what you focus on (LoA). You're thinking of rejection and abuse quite a lot. So that's what you see in your life. Focus on being true to yourself and living your personality in a positive way. My advice. |
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Yet I doubt anyone has a problem with you because of the things you described. On the contrary, I believe most people will admire you for that (I do). There are probably other reasons for your perceptions. I get the feeling that you are over generalizing. There are people who attack at the first sign of weakness, and they are, in a sense, very 'loud', thus able to take up much of ones reality if one lets that happen (which humans have a tendency to do). Quote:
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