I mean as in Spy x Family. Everyone has a secret they hide from everyone else, even their closest people.
Do you think real life is like that?
It is to a certain degree. You don’t bring your love for milk shakes to your “business attire only” office job. You may love Hentai, but you’re not telling the person next to you during an opera visit. These are aspects of you that don’t match the occasion, so you skip that. Most people do this naturally, they don’t spend much thought on it.
Then there’s “masking” as used by neurodivergent people. That’s an entirely different matter. More info an that is over at neurodivergentinsights.
Haven’t watched but going by your description alone : absolutely and I think it’s necessary.
Your closest person could be ok with most topics except for a few that maybe you talk to a therapist about as this person would incredibly sensitive with said topics to the point they’d have a meltdown or have very limited experience and start giving terrible and/or biased advice on. And maybe you care about all the other aspects about this person enough that you just save it for the therapist. EG: family trauma, mental illness, etc. and the therapist relationship, while different and not as deep, it can functionally overlap these missing parts and give you what you need to share it.
Or maybe that person does understand but can’t find the right language and say it in the way you need or want to hear it. Or you could have issues trying to share your perspective. Again: what a trained therapist can help you with.
And that is fair. I think we need to understand and respect the limitations of the people we love and respect our own boundaries about such topics. There’s only so far you can stretch a person or the relationship with them. It’s healthy to recognize this.
It’s also important to realize that no one other person on earth is going to be your entire witness of your life. Especially when they are already witnessing their own life. Equally: You are your full witness. This is your journey. You’re just sharing part of your ride with other people.
Persona (psychology) - Wikipedia https://share.google/aeMgXcVW6RqPHrwg7
As for everyone keeping a secret from everyone? Maybe. You don’t have to share everything with everyone, it’s ok to keep stuff to yourself if you want to. Most secrets are probably pretty banal though.
The person you don’t show others is no more your “true self” than the one you do. It’s still you, existing in that moment, responding to your environment, whether it’s your deepest emotions or your best mask.
Yeah, I like to think of out more as a spotlight than a mask. You’re choosing which aspects of yourself to draw attention to rather than hiding yourself behind a persona.
That is, unless we’re talking about the masking that neurodivergent people talk about wherein they put conscious effort into hiding their essential nature in order to fit in.
As someone with ADHD, absolutely. I’ve heard that many people with nerodivergent brains use this coping skill.
They covered this when I took Sociology 101 about 40 years ago.
I think I’d go further and say that there isn’t really any such thing as a person’s “true self.” People present different aspects of themselves in different circumstances. It’s like asking which orientation you should hold an object against a light to see the “true shape” of its shadow.
I believe thats whats called in Buddhism as having No Self. You are who you are at that moment.
Could be, I’m not deeply familiar with Buddhism. There’s still a core “something” in there that’s casting the shadow, but it’s not something that can be interacted with directly so I don’t know if it would fit the normal definition of a “self”. You can only directly interact with the shadows it casts and those shadows are situation-dependent. It doesn’t think or act in isolation.
I suppose one could just pick some specific set of circumstances and call the self that emerges under those conditions the “true self.” For example you could call the version of you that emerges when you’re lying in bed alone at night thinking about the dumb stuff you did during the day your “true self.” But that’s a bit arbitrary.
Yes. We all have an avatar
You would love Erving Goffman
I think everyone has about 3 “versions” of themselves.
One version for work. One for family. One for friends and partners.
The work version is the least honest because so much is unacceptable to say at work and people self-censor a lot. Say the wrong things and you will get meetings, write ups and maybe fired. Everybody gives their boss to much information at least one time and learns why you don’t do that.
The friends and partners version is normally the most honest version and can be completely genuine for some. Good friends can be trusted to keep secrets and don’t judge.
Family is normally in the middle but this depends. If the family was incredibly old fashioned, conservative or religious then maybe a person would need to self-censor even more than they do at work?
Politicians do this all of the time. Say and do one thing as theater to the public, turn around and do and say different things out of the public eye we later find out about.
I do this fairly often too. Where I work, nobody doesn’t need to know of shit about my personal life, it is none of their business. There’s nobody I like enough there that warrants me gushing about myself. I have about maybe five key friends who all know in depth of me, but how I tell things slightly differs from another but they’re generally getting the same stories and experiences I talk about.
What’ll really blow you’re mind is when you realize we aren’t even honest with ourselves either.
Your mask you show to others is no more fake than the mask you show to yourself.
I have a collection of masks. I assume others are like that too.
My Saudi parents back home think I’m a good Muslim young man. Meanwhile, I’m in Europe having adventures with women old enough to be my mom, among other things; so I’d rather not dishonor the family just yet.
username checks out
How could pleasing older women ever bring dishonor‽
Mohammed himself did as much with Khadija!
Be the change the world needs by replacing oil with pleasure as Saudi Arabia’s strongest export!
Purity culture combined with fertility expectations frames older women as low value, damaged or “used goods.” For example, my parents believe the ideal age gap is five years, with the man being older, and that couples should marry in their twenties.
It’s certainly better than the reverse.
You getting married or just fornicating?
Just fornicating. I’m young, I want variety, and I’m enjoying myself.
I want variety
a good salad contains a mixture of fruits ;-)
Well, at least you know this can’t last forever. 🤷😅
