I was just watching a youtube on Jungian personas and masks. The problem, Jung said, is that people put on masks to gain love and acceptance but hide their true authentic selves. Over time, they forget who they really are and become their mask.
The video was about how to remove the mask and discover your true self, but all I kept thinking was “love and acceptance? just for putting on a mask? how can I learn this skill?”
I think I need some how to get through job interviews more than anything.
I have a pretty bad work history and I don´t have a way to explain it to someone that isn´t willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. The other option is to just lie about it, but I feel to me like that is almost like spitting in their face. Like, obviously something went wrong with some of my jobs, and pretending that everything was hunky-dory is the equivalent of saying, “You must be really stupid to believe this obvious whopper of a lie I’m about to tell you,” but I think the reallity is that people like being lied to, or at least they’ll hire you if you lie baldly enough.
I’ve tried being honest in a way that emphasizes my strong points, but nobody wants to hear it. They say, “I didn´t like the job because they honestly had nothing for me to do.” and they’ll think, “this guy’s lazy! there’s always something to do!” (there wasn’t!!) or I’ll say, “I left my job selling car parts because I couldn’t learn enough about mechanics from reading books and watching videos, you really do have to work on them!” and they’ll think, “this guy is too stupid to learn” or "i bet he got fired for some other reason (which I did, but ultimately they were trying to get rid of me because between the guy who hired me and myself, we were perfect examples of both sides of Dunning-Krueger (he assumed everyone knew more than they did, and I assumed there wasn’t that much to learn)).
Then if I ever get a job, I might have to do a little more masking. Social work is a tough gig for me socially because I have a lot of huge problems with the profession and I think ultimately I need to stay away from careers where ingratiating yourself with the power structure is the only method of advancement (but I think that’s most of them?), especially when I am ethically opposed.
I got along great with my co-workers in tech when I worked in tech, but someone here pointed out that tech is chockablock with autistic types; and I’m really bad with tech.
And, sadly, one thing I might have to do is learning how to put up with abuse and being treated like shit and yelled at, because that’s where I am in my career at this point, like those are probably the jobs I can get. I walked off my last job because my boss was a total asshole in a way that I’d never experienced before: my reward for getting off disability.
Most people prefer a pretty lie to an ugly truth. Masking is lying. Completely making something up is an obvious aka ugly lie, the worst of both. The best way to lie to to base it on a kernel of truth.
So the best way to mask it to take some real aspect of yourself, and slightly exaggerate it to stretch it into an acceptable shape that the other person likes. This requires people watching, being present in the conversation, etc. Over time you’ll pick up trends or categories of people. You’ll mess up and put on the wrong mask for the wrong person sometimes, but you’ll get better with experience. Like the other comment said, small talk is great practice and low stakes. Some people will start liking you way more than you feel that should, and some people will dislike you and you’ll wonder why. Its because they felt your mask fell into the “uncanny valley”, and even though your intentions werent bad, they are justified at feeling uneasy around you because you are in fact acting fake around them.
If this all sounds psychotic, its because it is, masking isn’t something you should ever have to do, but the world we live in is fucked so sometimes in bullshit situations you have to be bullshit yourself.
Specific to interviews, they expect you to follow social customs and exaggerate, if youre being honest then even if that shows youre a virtuous person (and they may even like you more because of it) it also means that you either cant follow social normals because you dont know how, or you refuse to (which might show issues with authority) and either way it will lead to problems in the workplace. Passing qualifications is a minimum bar (most of the time), the real test in an interview is proving to them that they would like working with you. So in a round about way, it does make sense logically.
I kind of don´t even apply to social work jobs anymore. I know they are looking for people they can “relate” to and, surprise!, it’s young college educated white women with long hair who follow all the rules society’s given them.
This is quite a long sentence, but I think you’re just describing a Catch-22?
Also about relationships (any kind) you shouldn’t mask, because its wrong to lie and manipulate people who care about you and they deserve more than that. But also because masking is exhausting, and one day you’ll either run out of energy and drop it (and freak them out), or slowly push them away because you dont have the energy, and both lead to you wasting both of yours times, energy, heart, and trust.
in private relationships, there should come a point where you can be honest and open up about these struggles