I don't know about y'all but people have told me this ever since I was a kid, especially if I liked someone. "Just be yourself!" Well, I feel like always being myself did more damage than not over the years. I was always told I was pretty and plenty of boys liked me/were interested in me growing up, but it's like as soon as I started talking to them, they'd run away. Or if I became interested in a boy and started talking to them, I was always rejected without fail. I also heard a couple of times from other people "oh, so-and-so said you were weird."
I was definitely an awkward kid growing up. I had a lot of nerdy and cringey interests that I was not quiet about liking (I'm in my 20s now so it was still seen as cringe to like things like video games and anime back then). I was kind of a class clown too. My brother was also a class clown type but people just pinned him as boyish and charming, but when I did similar things as a girl, I guess it just came off as weird. When I liked someone, I was always direct about it and I guess that tends to be off-putting. Back then, I was always so confused why people thought I was weird because I thought it was a good thing to be myself and to speak my mind. I thought confidence and bravery were supposed to be good traits.
The people that have gotten to know me on a deeper level have always had good things to say. Like, I'm typically described as someone funny and upbeat. So I don't think I'm totally hopeless and unlikable, but to be honest, I still really struggle with this "be yourself thing." Especially when it comes to meeting a partner. I've done apps plenty of times over the years and I pretty much match with whoever I want. I've never had someone reject me there and they always typically want to keep seeing me (and I've had a couple of long term relationship), but I'm also dimming my personality to be polite and "safe." So, apps just never felt super authentic. Recently, I met a guy organically in real life and we really hit it off. We had a ton in common, he seemed really extroverted, and he had a fun sense of humor, so the mask I had on my personality ended up dropping pretty quick without me realizing until later (when I was reflecting on everything I did wrong in the conversation). He seemed to be into me too, as he kept complimenting my appearance (my smile, my eyelashes, my face). With my mask dropped, I ended up being really direct and I asked if I could get his Discord (we had been bonding about video games). He said yes and he even listed some games we could play together sometime. I was super excited and messaged him the next day first thing in the morning to see if he wanted to play something that night, but I ended up being ghosted. It's been four days and still no response. This guy is obviously a stranger but the disappointment hit me hard because it awakened all the old feelings of being "too weird" and all the times I was rejected by people I liked.
I was so excited to get to know this person because it seemed like they were interested in me even when I was being myself. I thought their personality was weird but in the best way possible, so I thought maybe they felt the same about me. When I talked to some of my brutally honest friends, they said that I should learn how to be 75% myself and to not say everything that comes to mind (they were kind of joking, but I think there was truth hidden in there). Of course I know not to say anything super inappropriate or explicit, but I guess sometimes I tend to act overly familiar with people or ask questions that are too personal. And I of course tend to be too direct with the things I want.
Anyways, this got me thinking… since I am apparently not the "average" person… is mostly everyone faking their personality? I get having a "work persona" or things like that, but do you really always mask your personality when you're talking to people you want to date? Is this something that most people have learned to accept? I just am so tired of masking my personality and have been really dreaming of meeting someone who adores that side of me, but I'm entering my late 20s and it seems like that's never gonna happen, so I'm trying to manage my expectations.