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I was at karaoke last night when I caught myself doing something I’ve done my whole life, and it made me realize how deep my people-pleasing actually runs.
My friend’s friend was talking to me. The music was loud, the room was buzzing, and somewhere in the middle of her sentence, I lost the thread of what she was saying. I couldn’t hear her properly. But instead of leaning in and asking her to repeat herself, I did what I always do.
I laughed. Then nodded along. A beat later, I laughed again, performing an understanding I didn’t actually have.
And then she said something that was clearly not meant to be funny, and I laughed at that too.
That’s when it slipped.
The look on her face said everything. She knew I hadn’t been listening. And in that moment, sitting there in a room full of music and noise, I felt something inside me go very quiet.
Why did I just do that? I asked myself. I didn’t even hear what she said. Why did I laugh? Why am I performing?
The Mask I Didn’t Know I Was Wearing
Here is what I realized, sitting with myself afterwards.
I have social anxiety. And for most of my life, the way I’ve managed it is by putting on a face. A friendly, agreeable, easy-to-like face. I walk into rooms, and I become whoever I think will be most accepted. I laugh at the right times. I nod along. I make myself pleasant, palatable, and easy.
I’ve worn this mask for so long that I genuinely don’t always know where it ends and I begin. This connects to something I wrote recently about how our ego keeps us stuck — read that here.
And that’s the part that unsettled me most. Because when the mask slipped last night, I was left with a question I didn’t have an immediate answer to:
Am I actually this friendly? Or have I just been performing friendliness for so long that I’ve lost track of who I really am underneath it?
I didn’t know. And that scared me.
But then I started thinking about something.
I started thinking about my friends. The people I love. And I asked myself, “What do I actually bring to these relationships, underneath all the performing?”
And the answer surprised me.
Every single night, before I go to sleep, I pray for the people I love. One by one, I call their names and ask for good things to come to them. I think about them with so much warmth that it sometimes catches me off guard. When they’re in need, I give. When they’re struggling, I show up. And I want them to win, genuinely, deeply, with my whole heart.
That’s not a performance or a mask. That’s real.
I believe in energy. I believe that wherever you focus your attention, it expands. And so, when I pray for the people I love, I’m directing my energy toward their flourishing. That’s something I do in private, where no one can see it, where there’s no one to impress.
Which means somewhere underneath the mask, there’s a person who loves deeply and sincerely. The warmth was never fake. I couldn’t always tell, because I’d buried it under so much performing.
If you are a people-pleaser, you will need to get to know yourself. Knowing who you are and what you value will open the door to a better understanding of your beliefs, emotions, and needs. This will also help you value yourself with a dose of healthy self-compassion. – Psychology Today.
The Difference Between Love and People Pleasing
Here’s what I’m coming to understand.
What I do for my friends, the praying, the showing up, the genuine care… that is not people-pleasing. That’s just who I am. That’s love. Real, freely given love.
But the performing? The part where I become whoever the room wants, the over-friendliness with people I barely know? That’s the people-pleasing. And those are two completely different things.
For so long, I confused them. I thought maybe all my warmth was just a strategy to be liked. But it isn’t. The warmth is real. The mask is the lie.
And once I could see the difference, I could finally ask the right question, not “How do I stop caring about people?” but “Why do I feel like I have to perform to be accepted when who I actually am is already enough?”
Where People Pleasing Really Comes From
I think the answer lies somewhere in my childhood. Most of these things do. But I’m not going to pretend I have it fully untangled yet.
What I do know is this. The friendships in my life that are strongest today, the women, the few good people who really know me, none of those relationships were built while I was performing. They came to me naturally, in seasons when I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. They were drawn to the real me, not the mask.
That tells me something important. The mask was never necessary. It never actually worked. The best people in my life chose me without it.
So this is where I land.
I want to be authentic. To drop the facade and let people meet the real me — even the anxious parts, even the quiet parts, even the parts that don’t always know what to say.
I’d rather have a small, devoted circle of people who love the real me than a crowd of acquaintances who only ever met the performance.
I’m not going to perform friendliness anymore. I’m just going to be warm where I’m genuinely warm, quiet where I’m genuinely quiet, and honest about what I can and can’t hear over loud music.
And I’m going to trust that the right people will find me. They always have.
The mask slipped last night. And honestly? I’m grateful it did. Because underneath it was someone I’m finally ready to get to know. 🌱
Have you ever caught yourself performing a version of yourself you thought people would like better? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
