Somewhere inside your head, somewhere inside the seemingly impossible organization of electrically
charged meat that calls itself the brain, is you. You nor anyone else properly understands
how this you comes to be—how states of chemicals and electrical firings turn into your immensely
complex subjective self. Fundamentally, you don’t understand you, where you come from, or how you
work. And yet, it is this same you that is trying to manage all of the complexities of being a you
in the world and, for the most part, trying to be liked by all the others yous that it encounters.
Of course, it feels very nice to be liked. In certain cases, it is essential. Our well-being
depends, to some degree, on the quality of our social relations, which require us being
sufficiently liked by at least some people some amount of the time. The impulse desire
to be liked and the concern we have over what others think of us has clear sociological and
evolutionary purpose—to cooperate effectively, reproduce, cultivate a sense belonging, and so on.
The problem, however, is the tendency for this otherwise positive impulse
to grow and mutate into a state of malignancy. How often do we find ourselves worrying about
what others will think of us before entering into a benign, low-stakes social interaction?
How often are we worrying while we are in one? How often do we worry about others thinking
about some strange or foolish but otherwise harmless thing we said or did in the past?
How often are we doing or not doing things, buying or not buying things, trying or not trying
things because of our concern over how others we don’t barely know or aren’t barely affected by
will see us? Any and all of these common cases is where the concern over what others think of
us can obviously turn potentially malignant. In infancy and early childhood, we are
inadvertently conditioned by our parents, teachers and so forth to feel like we are the center of
all attention, the most important thing in the world and beyond. Everything we do is relevant,
consequential, or impressive. When we walk for the first time, it’s the most important thing
that could have happened in the world that day. If we draw on the wall, it’s the worst
thing. But of course, the world did not care about either of those things that day at all.
As we age and are further socialized into the world, we slowly but surely realize this,
that the world mostly has never and will never care about what just about anyone does the vast
majority of the time, including us. We are not really at the center of anything at all, not even
our own minds. We are not important in any grand sense. No one really cares. Not really. Not in
the way that we want. This becomes obvious when we turn our lens away from our self and toward how we
view others. How often and how long do we think or care about others we don’t know that well?
How much do we care about the mistakes, missteps, and quirks of those we do? How often are we
thinking closely about what others are saying or doing in the moment or in life broadly? How often
does it affect them, even if we are? Surely, there are some exceptions here in certain circumstances
with certain loved ones, friends, colleagues, and so forth, but for the most part, the answer
is likely very little, if not, not at all. We are all so worried about ourselves, we leave almost
no time or mental space to worry about others in anywhere near the same way we are concerned.
And so, likewise, most of the time, when we do or don’t do something in a social moment or in life
in general, and we are concerned that others will perceive us negatively, most are in fact too busy
concerning themselves with when they messed or how they look to ever notice us, let alone care.
On one hand, confronting this—how little others really care or think about us—takes
away some degree of our sense of importance, but on the other hand, it gives us the
potential freedom to worry less about what others think and focus more on what we do.
In his famous 20th century play, No Exit, French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote,
“You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone,
the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is other people!”
This line, “Hell is other people,” is perhaps one of Sartre’s most famous quotes, as well as one
of his most misrepresented. He is not suggesting here that other people are inherently evil or bad
or unlikable, but rather, that hell is the imposed state of dependance and modification of one’s self
according to the integration, approval, and satisfaction of other people’s perception.
For Sartre, we naturally identify our sense of self through what he referred to as “the look,”
which essentially refers to the gaze or perception of other people we encounter. In a sort of
“self-reflective” function of consciousness, Sartre argued that a full comprehension of our
self forms as a result of our perceiving that we are being perceived by others. He would refer to
this construction of self as “the other”. In this, in every encounter with another person,
even if we are not conscious of it, we become some level aware that others, like us, are constructing
their own worlds and their own versions of us, rendering us into objects of their perception.
As a consequence, since we are, in part, comprehending ourselves through the reflective
function of this, we yearn for that reflection of us to be of high esteem and value, and modify
ourselves accordingly. Sartre suggested, however, that in the process of trying to fashion ourselves
according to how we fit into the “look” or minds of other people, we deviate from our free,
personal, and subjective self, and in doing so, enter into a state of a sort of existential hell.
In needing other people’s approval of our self so badly, we relinquish our self in the process.
Moreover, if one is not actually like something, does not like something, and so on,
but acts as if they do, they are giving off a false impression to those they portray it to,
all while harboring an entirely different truth that will either die inside them
or grow and fester into some eventual external explosion,
unfairly putting those who were not given the right information right in the line of debris.
Ultimately, the truth is, of course, no matter who you are and what you do,
some people will not like you—just like how you won’t like some people. Because everyone
is some amount unlikable. We are all messes, hovering around inside these obscure brains,
trying our best to try our best, tripping up on every third step. We are not the calm,
cool, collected types of people we draw up in the ideal. “Even on the highest throne in the world,
we are still sitting on our ass.” wrote Montaigne. And so, ultimately, if we’re going to look weird
or be unliked when we worry about what others think and attempt to mold ourselves accordingly,
you might as well be weird and unliked just going about yourself as you are as best you can.
Although it’s easy to agree with this conclusion, that of course does not mean the actions that
follow are. Arguably, to stop worrying about what others think of you, in this sense,
is not the kind of thing that can easily be trained or rationalized away.
When the anxiety of disappointment or rejection comes into play during various life choices,
when the self-aware anxiety hits in the moments of certain social interactions, the uncontrollable
state of mind that occurs seems to struggle to see order, self-control, and rationality. One
can know all of the aforementioned to be true, that in most cases, it generally doesn’t matter
what others think of you, that your life is lived and experienced through your own mind and your own
mind alone, but just like an irrational fear of a harmless spiders, irrational anxieties of harmless
social relations and interactions, by definition, don’t respond well to what you rationally know.
If there is to be some particular mindset that might help, though, it perhaps starts with these
subtle reminders—reminders of whatever helps regain perspective over how little others care,
how little the world cares, how absurd it is to be and function as what you are,
and that any moments of clarity, coolness, and success, when they come, are to be
appreciated for what they are: unusual, heroic transcendences to the norm of the human condition.
If, like Sartre suggests, we see ourselves by being seen by others, or like how Charles Cooley
put it, “I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I
am,” then perhaps we must see how other people see carefully and as generously as possible.