People pleaser syndrome: an experience report
It was a Saturday afternoon and I was having a really bad onereceive. I've had many massages in my life (especially my...- to relieve flare-ups), and many of them were invariably bad. And always for a specific reason: I was just too nice.
I was more worried about the masseuse liking me and liking me, and leaving our 60 minutes thinking, “I wish I had more clients like her,” than about whether I enjoyed the massage itself and was good found. The experience I paid for. I never would have thought of complaining if a massage ended five minutes before the time was up or if the pressure wasn't increased or decreased even after repeated instructions.
And this problem I have doesn't stop with massages. I have only ever felt safe when I felt like I was communicating with other peoplefriendlybehave. Be it to a potential employer. Be it rewriting emails to accounting over and over again until I'm sure they don't sound pushy or ungrateful - even if they pay me three months late.
Be it towards another mother in one-Child class, when I try to have a conversation while putting my eight-month-old's diaper back on, with a waiter at a restaurant, with my gynecologist, or recently with the teacher of my childbirth class. With her, I cared so much about her liking me that I focused all my energy on that goal instead of the most important thing: how to keep my baby alive once he was born.
Even during birth, I couldn't escape my innate need to be liked by the hospital staff. I tried to engage the various midwives, anesthesiologists, etc. in a funny conversation between each labored breath. I apologized profusely for not being able to get my own water (due to a full load of PDA running down my spine). And I kept insisting that I didn't need anything, even though I could think of about ten things I needed from minute to minute during my 21-hour labor.
And while my pursuit of endless sympathy and harmony has felt completely all-consuming and often embarrassing, I'm not alone. From an early age we becomeWe are taught that we must be cheerful, always friendly, personable, and easy-going - and when we neglect these behaviors, we are graciously reminded of this by attentive male strangers who approach us on the street and tell us to "smile more."
It's not just "normal" women who often fall victim to the endless - and energy-sapping - need to be liked. The director explained just a few weeks agooppositeThe New Yorkerthat you-Project with the actresswas stopped because a number of male executives chose the female protagonistunsympatheticheld: “The idea of an unsympathetic woman was not her thing. But that’s what I’m trying to say about who’s in charge,” she noted, adding that there are many male protagonists in successful onesthere are people who are unsympathetic.
Men who are in charge are bosses. Women in charge are bossy.
Unfortunately, this is one of the oldest patriarchal images:Those who are in charge are bosses. Women who are in charge are just bossy. Men are professional and committed. Women are cold. Men who disagree are “standing up,” while women are just being difficult. Women have to act small and uncomplicated – we are allowed to stay in the room, but only if we ingratiate ourselves with everyone else in the room and sit quietly in the corner.
There is countless evidence of this, but one example that always sticks in my mind is from the inimitableSheryl Sandberg in her bookLean In. She cites an experiment conducted at Columbia Business School in which they took a real-life entrepreneur's resume and made two identical copies, one with the name of the real owner - Heidi Rosen - and the other with a fictional man named Howard . Half of a group of business students read the first CV, the other half read the second. Students rated Heidi and Howard as equally competent, but when it came to being likeable, Howard was rated as pleasant and a good colleague, while Heidi was viewed as aggressive, egotistical, and someone you wouldn't like to work with became.
If women are not likeable, they are not safe - in the workplace, on the street or in relationships
In short, if women aren't likeable, we aren't safe - in the workplace, on the street, or in ours. And even though that made me angry, I had come to terms with the fact that I would always have to care more about being liked than most other things. Until mebecame.
This didn't happen immediately. In the first few weeks after my daughter was born, I said “yes” to visitors I should have said “no” to; I regaled the various midwives who made our home visits with happy stories and effusive thanks for pricking my newborn's heel multiple times when they couldn't draw enough blood for one of their routine tests.
