Have you ever known anybody whose entire personality appears to revolve around one big trope? Does it bother you?

No, I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who fits that description. If a person looks one-dimensional to you, I’d have to say you weren’t really seeing them.

No, not really. I would assume for someone to say of another person “Their entire” anything. Isn’t looking hard enough at the person and probably doesn’t WANT to see anything beyond their choice to go deeper and see what is there as opposed to what is percieved.

In other words, I agree with the comment above. *Smiles.

Gah, I missed the editing period. Of course, I wouldn’t claim to know anybody’s entire personality. If I could edit the question, I would change the word “personality” to “facade.” The face they put on to the world. Some people choose to put on a very cliched face.

Hahah! Those are funny. I knew there was a name for all those repeated themes in movies, but never knew the name. Above the ruins and Acrophobic bird do happen all the time.

Although when I think of what you describe, I think most do something like this. For example, the woman who puts on the personality of advertising how happy and cute her and her perfect family are around people.

Or the person that makes it seem like they’ve found their life’s work and nothing could be better than this one job, ever.

I guess it depends on if they really believe it or not, and how much of a deal they make it to everyone.

Yes
Chaucer once said the world’s a stage or something like that in his play “Dante’s Inferno”.

Well, here’s an example from my life of what I mean.

I knew this guy in high school who was very transparently trying as hard as he could to be Dr. House. The cynicism, the sarcasm, the whole “troubled genius” act, and not to mention the fact that he watched the show religiously and his goal was to be a doctor. It was seriously obnoxious.

Now of course this guy probably had a whole other side to him, I don’t mean to imply he was truly one dimensional, but the face he put on to the world was just one big trope. Still wish I could edit my question, dammit.

I can’t take these people seriously; they seem very ingenuine. They’re like walking caricatures.

When a person suffers trauma, and their life wasn’t all that it should have been cracked up to be, it is normal for someone to want to reinvent themselves in the best possible way they can.

Some people identify with something familiar, safe and seemingly fool proof and the intent isn’t to be fake, but to be accepted and liked. What does someone do when they weren’t provided the knowledge of how to go about achieving that? First you find something that works, and then attenpt to replace what is negative or painful or just not successful for what is. It’s hero worship at best. Hell, I know someone who wants to be Hitler… At least Dr. House is safe and doesn’t actually want to KILL people.

Many people don’t know anything in their life intimately much deeper than the identification they have with what they admire.

Some people are lucky, and they should consider themselves lucky in that they had role models and friendships and good parents or siblings that molded them positively and in a sane and rational atmosphere that provided them an inner strength.

Other people weren’t as lucky as some, so they do the very best that they can to reconstruct what they are more than likely tormented into being very highly atuned and aware because of the torment.

You just get it from every direction these days. If you are a problem, you get ridiculed, if you do the very best that you can to fix a problem you are ridiculed for that too.

I think this kind of thing makes it difficult for some people to breathe quite honestly.

Hell… when I was younger, my homelife was so completely miserable when my parents visited with friends I would scream and cling on to my mothers friends legs and cry and beg to stay with their family instead of having to go back to hell with my own misery bag parents.

Much to my mothers extreme embarassment and later when no one was watching, her very OBVIOUS discontent with my behavior. I was punished in very clever little spiteful ways.

You just don’t know a persons motivation, and the only way to know for sure, is to not dislike another person just because of something you observe and don’t take the time to rationalize, the trick is to care enough to see someone beyond your own hang-ups and pet peeves. Everyone has beauty… even in their flaws, even in their ugliness, everyone has hang ups and hurts and a miraid of different ways to handle them.

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm

“Maslow emphasized the importance of self-actualization, which is a process of growing and developing as a person to achieve individual potential.”

When there are missing component parts of this heirarchy, it’s like a personality that is more likened swiss cheese, and in these losses, especially when constantly having them pointed out and ridiculed because of them; anything that makes sense will be desprately used to fill them…

Love, work, personal achievement, competition, what can be percieved by others as an intentional event of being “ingenuine” or “fake” in some people who observe them, and in the case of more damaged personality types, even expressed through agression, anger, attention whether it be negative or positive.

The mode of transport is inconsequental to the end result of just getting the damn holes filled at any cost because they do hurt.

Some people come incomplete, and if you believe that it isn’t painful you are very wrong.

Closest I’ve come is a woman who projected herself and family as being perfect in every way. I think it was more to compensate for the facts that in her background there were 2 suicides, an unstable packrat mother, a sister who lived in her car before that became fairly common place, a child who died of cancer and on and on. Keeping up appearances becomes more important if you’re trying to hold things together. I would have more compassion for the person who lived under a fake facade. Who knows what lies under it? Annoying? Perhaps, but. . .

Okay, @GabrielsLamb, I never said the guy I know doesn’t have a painful life, I didn’t say anything about his motives. I’m sure if you dig deep enough everyone has a rationality for why they behave the way they do…that’s great and all, but not really what this question is about. You keep twisting my questions.

Yes, I have known several unauthentic types that cling to a self image that is anything but, who they really are. I let go of a friend about 7 months ago whose external persona is of the ” I am so caring, giving, morally superior, “helpful”, self sacrificing.” In truth, this woman is one of the most manipulative and controlling, codependent people ever to come down the pike.

I don’t do fraudulent personalities, at all.

Probably but I don’t keep those types close around me. No one I choose to associate with is like that.

Wow! I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone like this, either. Maybe I just don’t put up with pretenders or actors. Maybe I just don’t notice. Or maybe they do it, but it doesn’t fool me for a second. I always feel like I can see right through someone’s facade.

Ok. Maybe I have remembered someone. There’s a person who is a big part of my circle of friends. She is constantly cheerful and upbeat and perky and I generally can’t stand her. She is always inappropriately injecting her perky speeches where it is inappropriate, especially during spiritual moments. She thinks she’s being all spiritual, but what she is actually doing is taking people out of their spiritual space. She has no idea that she is breaking into people’s minds when she should shut the hell up.

Now she’s been abused in her past and I think she has used this perky front as a way to wall herself off from her true feelings and as a way of coping with the world. I’m sure there are people who like her attitude (she’s a mime). However I find it fake and like I never get to see the real her.

Well, I can see the real her, but only in terms of her energy, not in terms of the details. And her speech really is annoying, as are many of her actions, even though I understand where she’s coming from.

It isn’t just her, either. There are a lot of people in life who like to put on a false happy front. They act like everything is fine when it isn’t. They seem to believe that if they act as if things are fine, they will become fine. Maybe it works for them, but it bothers me because I can see the other things they are trying not to see, and then I feel like they are pretending and fooling themselves, if not fooling anyone else.

I shouldn’t say “fooling” because I don’t think they are trying to fool anyone. I think they are trying to help themselves lead happier lives. The problem for me is that they aren’t doing it very well—or not well enough to fool me.

In any case, I don’t believe in that method of coping with a shitty past. I don’t think you can shove your demons into closets and expect them to stay there. I think you have to let the demons out, and introduce them around, and dance with them. Only then will you be able to incorporate them into your life in a way that both acknowledges them and allows you not to worry about them any more.

If I am to ever have a serious relationship with such a person, then we have to talk about the real history, not the aspirational one. Since most people don’t want to do that, we don’t become friends. That’s ok. There are plenty of people who are willing to be real.

Not really, but if that’s how they choose to live their life good on them.

Yes, Jesus being the trope.

Oooohhhhh, snap!

Yes, I’ve known a couple of tortured artists in my time. It’s rather tiring.

Does being sick all the time count? I know a woman who is a hypochondriac, plus does not take care of herself, which makes many of her symptoms true.

@YARNLADY I’ve completely known people like that.

@Mariah I have no need to “twist your questions.” It is apparent that you and I think, as well as, behave, and see things, and life, and people from VERY different perspective places. I’m sorry I can’t agree with you. I didn’t think that was the point in the social section.

I see alot of my own issues in these things you bring up quite often as personal issues you have with others, I believe that the opposite outlook also deserves a voice as well.

Maybe you don’t like my responses because I tend to speak from the perspective of the person you are speaking about? It’s not plesant, but it is important… i notice that you seem to like to be agreed with and that’s fine, I understand but I am not doing it with intent to ‘twist” anything in a malicious or incendary way.

I’m not trying to ‘twist” anything more than the overall perspective, and in exchange offer my own as possible reasons and examples in contrast.

If you have no value for the exchange I wont post on your questions anymore. it’s fine, I have no problem with doing that.

Thanks for being honest.

Is there a “block” feature on here? I would be happy to do that for you respectfully.

Two that I can think of. One resisted any attempts to get to know her on a deeper level so it was impossible to know her full personality. I was close to the other one, but having insight as to why she behaved the way she did didn’t make up for the fact that she did it. She’s gone.

@GabrielsLamb Jesus, I never attacked you, never said I don’t value your viewpoint, never said I don’t like you, never said I don’t want to listen to people who disagree with me, never said I don’t want you to post on my questions…but on my last question, instead of answering it, you went on about how you don’t need to be part of a group, which didn’t answer the question, and on this question you went on about how I’m judging people without knowing their psychology, which doesn’t answer the question. I’m not telling you you have to agree with me, I’m just asking you to answer the question I asked instead of saying something completely different.

No there isn’t a block feature but if you don’t want to read what I write, you don’t have to read it.

I did answer your question my dear… Mine was the second answer down.

“No, not really. I would assume for someone to say of another person “Their entire” anything. Isn’t looking hard enough at the person and probably doesn’t WANT to see anything beyond their choice to go deeper and see what is there as opposed to what is percieved.

In other words, I agree with the comment above. *Smiles.”

And I elaborated thereafter… Forgive me if I am wrong for doing so… I am still sort of new here and I don’t know how everything works in specifics. If we are supposed to just say “No” and move on, I am sorry for not knowing that.

I do think it’s better though if I don’t respond here anymore, I don’t want to upset you and I haven’t actually accused you of any of those things.

you however did say I was ‘Twisting” things… i was merely explaining that I hadn’t intended to do so and if I have… I apologize to you.

No, no, I’m sorry, I’m not saying you need to just give your answer and go away, I’m just saying it would help if your answers applied in the first place. I was looking for people’s stories and instead I got (what I felt) was judgment towards me about how I view people. Anyway, sorry for coming across hostile, I really didn’t mean anything mean by it when I said you were twisting my questions, it’s just that my last two questions have gotten pretty much derailed by some of the tangents you’ve gone off on. You seriously don’t need to stay out of my questions, though; I am not upset.

It’s okay… *Smiles.

We are all learning and bumpung up against one anothers feelings and that can be problematic. please feel free to say if i am being an ass… I try not to be but it doesn’t always transfer through very well

peace lovely lady… I truly mean no harm and i actually enjoy your questions, because they too challenge my own crazy head and make me think about myself as well, which is almost never comfortable.

*Smiles… peace!