I also know that the façade each of us chooses depends on the situation we find ourselves in. But what I don’t know is how we choose what face to wear and how we decide when we have gone too far.
For example, I meet a lot of new people every year in my capacity as a teacher. I always do some type of ice-breaker where students give a brief verbal introduction of themselves. Some students say very little about themselves and deflect interest or curiosity. Those folks frequently say that they have nothing interesting going on in
their life. I can relate fairly well to those students. I am one of those students when I am a student.
What always surprises me is when folks introduce themselves with claims that seem implausible at best.
Just a handful of examples here: I have had students suggest they own a thriving business, speak multiple languages, have worked with or on enormous construction projects overseeing hundreds of employees. Now are any of these claims ridiculous? Not really. But I always wonder how a person that has completed multi-million dollar construction projects ends up in my classroom. I teach developmental writing.
So what makes a person pick something grandiose for his or her personal life that they share with others? I am not saying that those things could not or did not happen for folks, but sometimes the proof, in the form of me getting to know the student, is simply not there. So why pick (dare I say make up?) something that many folks are probably not going to buy anyway? What status does that gain the person inflating his or her resume?
I know that it happens in other scenarios as well. People inflate their own importance or self-worth for any number of reasons, but I don’t get it. I tend to go the other way myself, and maybe that is part of why I don’t get the other side.
So, a few questions, because I know lots of questions but not lots of answers. Does everyone you know wear a façade? Do you wear a façade? If so, in what situations? Why do people inflate their skills, abilities, attributes, accomplishments when they are meeting total strangers? If you had your
druthers, would you rather people did or did not present a façade when meeting you?