7 Uncomfortable Truths You Only Learn Once You Stop Trying to Be Likable

If you're lucky, you'll eventually reach a point in your life when you realize you can’t remember the last time you honestly cared whether someone liked you.

For most people, it sneaks up pretty quietly. Somewhere between that first time you notice your knee clicks every time it gets cold and the morning you realize you've been drinking the same brand of coffee for seven years because trying a new one sounds too emotionally taxing.

For me? It happened early, likely because I'm on the autism spectrum and have never really understood other people or liked being around them. (Seriously, I grew out of my ugly duckling phase in my late teens, immediately realized that a staggering portion of humanity is trash, and that was pretty much it.)

But sooner or later, the universal human instinct to seem pleasant, agreeable, and vaguely impressive just kind of times out for everyone. You get tired of wearing a mask every day of your life, a mask you hope other people will find likable, despite the fact that it's also heavy as fuck.

And once you set that mask down, a bunch of odd truths suddenly drift into view.

Naturally, they were always there. You were just too busy engaging in all the smiling, nodding, and soul-siphoning small talk life requires of you to notice them.

1. A lot of your so-called values originated with shitty people

Nothing humbles you quite like tracing huge chunks of what you think is your personality back to its original authors and realizing half of them were deeply underwhelming people.

That one crunchy English teacher who made an offhand comment about your “potential” that one time. An old boyfriend who said you were “too sensitive.” A parent who expected success but never really defined what that meant, so you assumed it meant everything.

You eventually internalize this stuff and let it shape your self-image (and usually not for the better). Really, it’s a bit wild just how many of our supposedly deeply held values and preferences turn out to be nothing more than strategies for keeping the peace.

For example, I personally thought I was naturally low-maintenance (and prided myself on that) until the day I realized I'd really just grown up around people who punish others for having even basic needs or wants.

But once you catch yourself reenacting old emotional choreography (which you eventually will), you can finally retire it. No encore required.

2. Everyone's too busy worrying about their own imposter syndrome to worry about yours

If you've ever low-key panicked over how you came across in a conversation? Know that the other person was likely too busy wondering whether they made an ass of themselves when they said “Sounds good!” one too many times to even notice.

Regardless of how it feels at times, the world is not a panel of judges just waiting for you to screw up. It’s a big, sloppy, smelly room full of people desperately trying to keep their own personal chaos from showing through in public. You're not the only one standing in line at Starbucks, silently rehearsing what they’re going to say when the barista asks for their name.

This realization is both comforting and slightly comedic.

Seriously, you imagine everyone studying every nuance of your every move at all times. Meanwhile, they’re just hoping their debit card doesn’t decline for no reason.

3. A lot of the things you thought you wanted just looked good on other people

Human beings are extremely susceptible to “ambition osmosis.”

It's only natural to see someone glowing with pride over a milestone — buying a house, getting a promotion, running a marathon — and assume you want that, too. This is the case even if you have no earthly interest in homeownership, corporate titles, or voluntarily running toward anything, let alone a literal finish line.

Once you stop auditioning for the “well-adjusted adult” role, you finally start noticing just how many of your old goals feel suspiciously like a group project you never signed up for. Some ambitions melt away the second you really question them. Others drop off the list once you realize they require ironing.

And if you're me? Sometimes you actually have to accomplish a thing or three off of your running bucket list to realize you never actually wanted those things in the first place. Good times.

4. Your most embarrassing moments are not in any way unique

For years, I treated certain memories like cursed artifacts. True originals, because who else could possibly fuck up that hard?

That one time I accidentally laughed into the intercom at work. The time I tripped on nothing while going down an escalator and landed flat on my ass. The moment in my twenties when I pretended to understand something I totally did not understand and got caught winging it.

But then I realized everyone has a file cabinet of cringe, and a hell of a lot of the folders inside are a lot thicker than mine. In other words, nobody’s out there replaying your greatest hits of humiliation. (They probably don't even remember.)

5. Competence is way more random than anyone wants to admit

This one hits you once you start seeing the actual inner workings of workplaces, institutions, even family systems. Suddenly, the myth of “competent adults in charge” evaporates like mist on a hot driveway.

You'll run into people running entire departments who still don’t know how to convert a PDF. And there are people making massive financial decisions who think vibes are more reliable than budgeting. Meanwhile, you’re over here worrying about whether you were accidentally giving resting bitch face during a Zoom call.

At the end of the day, the whole house of cards of life stays up not because people know what they’re doing, but because everyone is too damn exhausted to ask any follow-up questions.

6. Most of your self-lies were more about protecting your energy than vanity

Humans lie to themselves for the same reason toddlers hide under blankets. It just feels safer, and that's enough for most of us.

You ignore relationship problems because dealing with them is too exhausting for a Tuesday. Maybe you tell yourself you “don’t mind” certain behaviors because the alternative means having a conversation that could last an hour when you have work to finish. Or perhaps you cling to certain habits because changing them requires a level of initiative you can only access on days that start with R.

Once likability stops leading the wagon, though, you start noticing how many of your “quirks” were actually just survival tactics. Not a great thing to learn about yourself, but nothing that's going to kill you, either (probably). At least now you know when you’re making choices out of convenience rather than conviction, right?

7. The real you shows up once you stop auditioning

One thing it took me most of my life to actually realize about myself. There’s no perfectly authentic inner me waiting to be discovered like a long-lost artifact. What I had was raw material and a surprising amount of creative freedom, and the same goes for you.

Identifying the parts you want to keep and separating them from the parts you discard or reinvent — that’s the real work. And it doesn’t happen while you’re still too busy trying to win everyone else's approval. It happens once you finally drop the performance and decide people can either take you as you come or sit and spin.

Once you finally drop the likability act, the world finally stops feeling like somebody's bad stage play and starts feeling like a room you actually live in.

People don’t become easier to deal with (especially if you're a misanthrope like me), but they do become marginally less confusing. You stop reading between the lines because you're finally busy writing your own damn book for once.

So, you can spend half your life shaping yourself into something universally palatable to people you probably don't even care about deep down, or you can spend the rest of it actually having a personality.

Only one of those options is actually any fun.