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 don’t understand what you mean by “authenticity, bro.” Wouldn’t a genuine attempt be authentic necessarily force you to look at which parts of yourself are performative?
You know, you would think so. That’s what I personally feel. But there’s like this whole social vibe around it that I think has swallowed up the actual act of introspection in a performance of genuineness. I once heard a woman refer to it as “the authenticity trap” and I guess that has just really stuck with me. Like people want you to be your true self and they think that they’re always being their true self, but that’s only because navigating social situations comes so naturally that they never have to consider the act of performing or the things they’re doing to pull that off.
For people on the autism spectrum, our unfiltered selves may seem desirable until people discover that authentic autism also includes social faux pas, needing breaks when we get overstimulated, not being able to parse multiple complex interactions at once. Personally I’ve noticed that people who fixate on the idea of authenticity a lot tend to quickly assume I’m being disengenguine with them when I don’t hold their gaze or correctly match their energy. It kind if just makes me think that authenticity as NT’s conceptualize it is just another way of arbitrarily sorting people based on vibes and that I can do the same thing they think that they’re doing just by being kind.
Sorry, for the rant. This is kind of a dead horse I tend to keep beating often. I’ve found Judith Butler’s Theory of Performativity to be kind of helpful in navigating this but that’s probably not how she even intended it. It just seems helpful after decades of trying to parse the “just be yourself” thought-terminating truism that people love to hand out.
Great article; as someone unemployed and friendless, certainly gave me some things to chew on. I kind of do need a job, but I think ultimately what I’ve decided is that friends are more effort than they are worth for usually very little to no reward. I tried friending someone, but he didn´t care about anything he couldn´t stick his dick into; desperately tried to connect with another person over Buffy the Vampire Slayer only to have me babysit their dog so they could visit their girlfriend then disappear with Season 7 DVD which is only available in the full fucking set AND the streaming (and piratable version) is some bullshit widescreen abomination with random color grading. Now I’m someone’s boyfriend, apparently the only relationship status that any gives a fuck about, so I guess I’ve achieved everything one can hope for socially.
I kind of don’t share the author’s belief that you can be 100% yourself with a therapist because they’re a “professional.” That’s some delusional bullshit and I wonder if people have trouble being authentic with her because she has trouble being authentic with them… becoming authentic is a matter of trust, and trust must be earned, and this should be obvious. If someone doesn’t understand that and think I OWE them my authenticity, then can talk to my persona all day long.
As far as rules go, I notice there is a lot of delusion around the way the world works, lots of things people don´t recognize are involved.
Yeah isn’t that fucking weird how as a masc presenting our value is measured by whether we’re in a committed relationship? No I definitely get deprioritizing certain stuff, the cultural pressure feels manipulative. I don’t like people’s reasons for expecting those kinds of connections from me, I want to have my own reasons for dating or making friends.
Also I’m with you there. Therapists aren’t a monolithicly well-practiced or even well intentioned group. I’ve had a pretty mixed experience with finding therapists who will see me as I am and not project an archtype they’re more familiar with onto me. After a while of that you get cautious about the speed with which you give them info. PsychologyToday tends to be more of a pop-psy website that I avoid but this article just was the most accessible for what I was trying to communicate.
Well, to expand your variety of kinds of friends that you have I am now deciding that we are internet friends. That’s a kind of friend that you can have, one that just goes “we’re friends now” without much consideration or change. So what does this mean for you? Nothing except you now have an additional friend-type. Congrats. 👍
I was more referring to the fact that friendship doesn’t exist in my world. When I try to make friends with straight men, they’re mostly confused. They’re not really interested in talking or sharing their lives with another man, they just might want to kill time. All they’re really interested is in a woman to have sex with, and it’s pretty obvious the moment they find one because they completely disappear.
I’m not sure the effect of social pressure there. Is there a genuinely felt pressure to mate or is it more that they think having any kind of emotional bond with a man is gay (and therefore bad)?, leaving a single woman the only person that will enable them to perform their full humanity?
So with no men wanting to be my friends, and women all avoiding me because I would eventually want to have sex with them probably, that really leaves me with a girlfriend as the only person in the world who will take me halfway seriously. I’ve never been disappointed to get into a relationship before in my life, but I was this time. “Well, shit, here we go again, someone to tell me they love me until they don’t anymore and they switch to texting me once-a-year on my birthday.” I didn´t want a girlfriend. I wanted a friend, or a friend group.
I think I’m done with therapy. “It’s easier to become a good therapist than to find a good one,” so I’m doing some reading and pondering.
Thanks for being my friend.
My experience is obviously perspective to the US but I hear it’s different in other places. Relationships could be less streamlined for accommodating men who work 12 hour shifts and just never get to be around. There’s a little bit of both social pressure here to get into a relationship fast and also a stigma against being single or having emotional connections with other men. I get the idea from media and anecdotes from my elders that deeper male friendships were less more common before I was born. But given that older people here are more homophobic I don’t entirely understand how they could gave.
Are men not forming friendships even after they marry either? No couple’s nights bowling?
And yeah how fucked is it that women have to be in the role to give us meaning? I don’t like that for them because that’s a messed up expectation to have but I mostly don’t like that I supposedly don’t have meaning without a woman in my life. If I do ever date again, I want it to happen because someone enjoyed my company and not because I needed them in order to feel like I was worthy of love.
I’m sorry you felt pressured to be in a relationship. I hope you guys can find a spark that at least makes each other’s company feel worth the effort. Søren Kierkegaard says it’s a worthy way of living to be vulnerable and opt in to the inevitability of loss
Any time, chief 🙂 I hope you find the answers you’re looking for