How often have you automatically plastered a smile across your face when an acquaintance ran over to chat when you were on your way somewhere? Or nodded and smiled politely when someone was going on about something you truly didn’t care about?
Most of us were taught to be performatively friendly as children in order to be liked and thought of well by those around us. But while it’s important to be kind and respectful, pretending to be friendly can often be more detrimental than not. Here are some firm signs that you’ve reached that realization yourself, and you aren’t playing at performative pleasantness any longer:
1. Fakers start avoiding you.
Some of the most sincerely kind, friendly folks I have ever met were Slavic or Balkan people who walked around scowling most of the time. They never understood the Western inclination for people to pretend that they’re happy, friendly, and approachable towards everyone: they kept their pleasantries for those whom they wished to associate with. One of them, Piotr, described it as not leaving the door open for the undeserving to come in and make themselves comfortable, as they’ll never want to leave again.
Fake, superficial people who balk at sincere connection will start avoiding you when you stop pretending to be bubbly and friendly all the time. They don’t know how to work with authenticity, as it goes against the choreographed playbook they’re familiar with. Although they may start trash-talking or gossiping about you behind your back, fear not, they’ll likely soon drop out of your social sphere entirely.
2. You feel a whole lot lighter.
Being performatively nice to others who don’t deserve it is incredibly draining. Interestingly, as soon as you stop doing it, you’ll find that you experience a lightening of the spirit. This is because you’re no longer doing something that’s false. You may have been doing it to be polite, only to receive poor behavior in return, more often than not. If you don’t particularly like or respect the person in front of you, it’s a disservice to both of you to continue that charade.
For example, several years ago, a friend and I ran into a guy who owed said friend a significant chunk of money. The debtor had owed this money for a while and had repeatedly broken his word about when he’d pay it back. During our interaction, he was overly nice to both me and my friend.
When the time came to leave, he offered his hand for me to shake. I had remained polite but not friendly during the interaction and turned down his offer to shake. When he asked why, I told him that he already knew that answer. He couldn’t be trusted, and I wouldn’t allay his feelings in light of his repeated bad behavior. He gave me a venomous look and left, and I felt buoyant about avoiding having that chap in my life a second longer than I had to.
3. You lose fair-weather friends and start making better ones.
It’s a sad reality that many of the people who call themselves our friends are quick to disappear when trouble arises. They’re keen to hang out when you have money to buy them drinks or food, or if you have items that they’d like to borrow, but if you get sick or need their help with something important, suddenly they’re nowhere to be found. Once the dust has settled, however, they slink back with smiles and good cheer, and expect the friendly feelings to be just as bright as they were before.
When you stop performing friendliness and tell these people exactly how you feel, one of two things will happen: the false ones will disappear from your life because your honesty has made them uncomfortable, and the real ones will apologize for their behavior and try to make it up to you.
4. Others start to respect and trust you more.
Many of us have worked with colleagues who were chipper and super-friendly all the time, and swiftly got annoyed with their behavior. This is because being friendly all the time is contrived, fawning behavior that’s usually used to gain other people’s approval. We all have off days and periods where we don’t feel particularly sociable, and that’s completely normal.
When you aren’t performing friendliness anymore, but you’re still polite and genial in your own way, those around you develop much more respect for you. They see your authenticity, and that makes you more trustworthy. They know they can count on you to be honest when it matters, and even if it’s not always what they want to hear, they respect you for it.
5. You have a lot more energy.
Anyone who has performed onstage (or similar) knows how much energy goes into making that performance happen. You have to be acutely aware of everything your body, face, and voice are doing; every micro-expression, every sound you make is hyper analyzed to ensure that you’re sticking to the choreography and responding to interactions properly, etc.
As soon as you step off the stage, your adrenaline drops and you crash. Your face falls into its natural state rather than the smiling rictus you’ve had plastered on, and all you want to do is have a snack and crash for a while.
The same goes for performing in your everyday life. When you stop putting on an act for others’ benefit, you don’t have those periods of manic activity followed by inevitable crashes. Instead, you have a lot more energy that remains constant throughout the day.
6. You’re more comfortable establishing boundaries.
That performative friendliness you’ve been engaging in for a while likely entailed letting others do things in your life that you didn’t particularly want, nor enjoyed. This was likely to maintain the peace in a situation and avoid being perceived as unkind, unlikeable, uncooperative, etc. But to do so invites people to walk all over you.
When you stop focusing on being liked by everyone, you get a lot more comfortable establishing boundaries to protect your peace. In fact, you may find it immensely freeing to be honest about the things you dislike and refuse to tolerate, rather than grinning through them and insisting that all is fine.
7. You don’t feel obligated to spend your time at other people’s whims.
Those who want to be perceived as nice and friendly often sacrifice their own time for the sake of other people’s approval. A perfect example of this would be stopping for a chat every time they run into someone they know on the street, so they aren’t considered rude by anyone.
If you know most of the people who live around you, this can turn a quick errand into an outing that takes several hours. And it may result in you hearing all about your neighbor’s aunt’s bunions, and how the local baker has been having an affair — none of which you ever wanted to hear about at all.
When you stop being performative, you’re much more comfortable telling people that it’s lovely to see them, but you need to go. And what’s more, you don’t worry whether they’ll be upset with you or not. After all, if they are, that’s on them: not you.
8. Romantic endeavors become more authentic (and decisive).
Performative friendliness can cause people to waste time in romantic endeavors as well. For example, being overly friendly with a date you’re not really into can give them the impression that you’re getting on like a house on fire and drag things out for longer than you actually want. In contrast, being polite without being overly saccharine helps everyone understand exactly where they stand.
A polite-but-no-nonsense mindset means that you can communicate your needs and position on things effectively, so there’s no time wasted. Trying to be overly friendly to accommodate others is a disservice to both yourself and them, and the connection formed is inauthentic.
That goes for established relationships as well: being honest about things that are bothering you instead of pretending everything is fine is the best way to work through them, rather than letting things drag on unaddressed.
Final thoughts…
The key here really is to recognize that you aren’t being “unfriendly” by refusing to be pantomime cheerful for other people’s benefit. You’re simply being very discerning about when, where, and to whom you’re willing to offer friendly behavior.
If you aren’t happy to see someone, or if you’re not in the mood to smile and chat, then don’t pretend otherwise. A polite nod to acknowledge them as you’re walking past is completely acceptable. Save your friendly feelings and energy for those you sincerely want to connect with, and you’ll find that you feel much lighter as a result.
