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Printer-Friendly ModeTrying too hard to act happy can pollute trust in relationships
September 21, 2009 —
Wearing your heart on your sleeve or blurting out exactly what you think at the moment you are thinking it can be and usually is disastrous. It is common practice among employers to control not only the whereabouts and actions of their employees while they are on the clock, but also their attitudes too. Here in the Residential Life department, we Resident’s Assistants abide by a “Disney Philosophy” while serving our clients; we forget what is happening in our lives or in our day and put on a smile to create a friendly atmosphere for residents, and especially on move-in day for their parents, too. I support this philosophy – it’s the only sensible way to do business in the service industry – but it can be taken too far in one’s personal life, with some serious consequences.
Certainly, if a waiter or waitress were to vent their frustrations with their love life to us while bringing us our meal, it would change our dining experience. Servers take the order and bring the food and the drinks, displaying the attitude that doing so is their life ambition and that nothing would make them happier. When they get out of earshot, they complain, cuss and make fun of their clients just to make it through the shift sane. We know this (if you don’t, you’re being made fun of by all your waiters), but we still want it that way. There is no cry from frequent diners-out for authenticity of displayed emotion in waiters. Why? Because we don’t care about the integrity of the relationship between us and our waiters; we just want our food, and they just want their tip.
In our personal relationships, that kind of emotional fraud is kryptonite. If somebody who you are close to only displays positive emotions, how are you to know what they are feeling? Are you really close to them? Do you really understand their character if the personality they project is only a clown-mask pulled over a face that is more serious and complex?
Imagine if you and your sibling go golfing every Friday. You eat chocolate chip ice cream and you make a carrot cake for their birthday every year. You have your family reunions skiing in Colorado and play Scrabble while drinking hot tea every night after a long day on the slopes. For a while now, you have watched Friends together and you give them the latest season on DVD for Christmas each year.
Then one day you go on Family Feud and find out on national television that your brother or sister hates golfing and downhill skiing, prefers Superman ice cream and German chocolate cake, thinks word games are stupid, wonders why tea exists when hot chocolate is so perfect, and is still confused as to how Jennifer Aniston or Courtney Cox ever got to be millionaires.
The flight home is awkward. After a silent wait in the airport and a tense takeoff, you snap above the clouds and ask if their name is really, whatever. They respond apologetically, saying that they didn’t want to ruin the fun or make you feel bad by complaining. They thought everything would be better if they just acted like they were having a good time.
Unrestrained complaining or expressed anger is usually a bad idea: it doesn’t help situations to ignite emotions and compound negativity. But don’t let fear of offending, disappointing or annoying somebody who cares about what you think and feel cause you to confuse that person by smiling and nodding on the outside when you are frowning, crying or tearing your hair out on the inside. You can’t trust people who make it their goal each day to smile all the time, skip down the sidewalk with glee and compliment everybody they see. They tell you your shirt is nice, but they would say that if had a poncho on.
Eeyore brings everybody down. Acting like that will make people feel sorry for you for a little while before they get sick of you being an emotional black hole, sucking the happiness out of your surroundings like Death. Tigger is ridiculous. Acting like that will make people who allow their face to reflect their emotions sometimes to think you are a lunatic. It’s impossible to be close to a Tigger, because you know that all that bouncing, giggling and laughing is a façade, and nobody wants a friend they don’t really know. Be a real person, like Pooh, who loves honey, has a little bit of anxiety and will tell people when he’s unhappy. That kind of authenticity will let your friends and loved ones know that when you say their shirt is nice, you mean it.