A Different Me Pops Out With Different People
It's Adaptation, Not Pretense
The sulky youngest child at your parents' place, the class president at a school reunion, the quiet new hire on a new team. Here's why a different you comes out in each relationship, and how to tell pretense from adaptation.
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When you go back to your parents' place for the holidays, the way you talked at sixteen strangely comes back. When your mom says “Have some more rice,” you snap “Ugh, I'm fine,” then go into your room and shut the door. The next day, with high school friends you haven't seen in a while, you find yourself picking the meeting spot and steering the conversation, just like in your class president days. Then on Monday, in a meeting with the team you just moved to, you're the quiet one who only gives short answers when asked. It feels like you've lived as three different people in three days.
You might wonder, “Am I just fake?”, but this is very common and completely natural. In this piece we'll talk about what decides which you comes out in which setting, how to tell whether it's pretense or adaptation, and how to get along well with all your different selves.
Sometimes the relationship decides which you comes out
There are a few clear reasons the same person comes out differently in different settings.
Relationships remember a version of you. Old relationships remember the roles from the time they first formed. To your family you're still the youngest, and to your old classmates you're still class president. When they talk to the you from back then, you find yourself answering with the temperament of back then. Getting sulky at your parents' place isn't a sign of a bad personality; it's an old role switching on by itself. What people call you plays a part too. It's hard for the same side of you to come out where you're called “the baby” and where you're addressed as the respected senior. The name people call you tells you the role you'll play there.
Other people's temperaments leave empty spaces. Next to a talkative friend you become the listener, and next to a quiet friend you become the one who fills the silence. Travel with a friend who brings a detailed itinerary and you become the follower; travel with a laid-back friend and you're the one sorting out where to stay and how to get around. Your sociability or organization hasn't changed. You're filling the space the other person left open.
The more that's at stake, the more your cautious side comes forward. In settings where you're being evaluated, or in front of someone you want to impress, the urge not to make mistakes grows. If you have a wide emotional amplitude, you feel that tension even more, so you may talk less than usual or, the other way around, start talking faster. The quiet you on a new team may be quiet not by nature but because a lot is still at stake there.
Add a few more settings to those three days and it looks like this.
| Setting | The you who came forward | What made it that way |
|---|---|---|
| Your parents' place over the holidays | The sulky youngest | An old role the relationship remembers |
| A high school reunion | The class president who steers the conversation | The old role, plus the space left open by laid-back friends |
| The team you just moved to | The quiet new hire | A setting where a lot is still at stake |
| With a long-term partner | The you who gets to be a little babyish | The comfort of being able to let the tension go |
| Your friends' group chat | The you who handles all the reactions | The empty space that opens up when everyone's quiet |
Laid out in a table, every setting has its reason. And all of these versions ultimately sit somewhere between two places: your social self, the you around people, and your private self, the you alone. The more comfortable the relationship, the closer you move toward your private self; the more tense, the closer toward your social self. So you aren't several people. You're one person who stands, moment to moment, at some point between two characters.
Check whether it's pretense or adaptation
Pretense is inventing a you that doesn't exist, and adaptation is bringing out, from the many traits already in you, the one that fits the setting. When you're unsure, answer the questions below.
- Is the side you use in that setting a trait that was in you, even a little, to begin with?
- When it's over, do you feel the tiredness of “I really had to put myself out there” without the feeling of “I was on edge in case I got found out”?
- Would it be no big deal if someone close to you saw you like that?
- Is there nothing you're trying to gain by fooling the other person with that side of you?
- In that setting, are you still keeping to the things you've decided you won't do?
If most of your answers are “yes,” it's adaptation. The volume was different, but it's the same you. If you have several “no”s, it's worth looking at whether that setting keeps demanding traits you don't have. That may not mean you're a fake person but that the setting doesn't fit who you are right now.
Getting along with all your different selves
- Write one line about the you that comes out in each relationship. Like “the sulky youngest in front of Mom,” “the class president who organizes everything with old classmates,” “the observing new hire on the new team.” Once you write it down, you can see that your many selves don't pop out at random; each relationship has a fairly steady pattern. That pattern is what makes you you.
- Change an old role you want out of, starting with one sentence. The role a relationship remembers doesn't change all at once. But you can change one small sentence. Instead of “Ugh, I'm fine,” try saying “I'm full, thanks.” After a new sentence has come up a few times, the you the other person remembers starts to shift too. If you're tired of always being the organizer at reunions, handing off picking the place to another friend this time works the same way.
- Look closely at the relationships that bring out a you that you like. If you like the you who briskly makes plans when you're with a laid-back friend, you may be someone who enjoys using organization. Once you know which relationships bring out which of your traits, you can try using those traits a little in other settings too.
- Don't judge the you in a new setting by first appearances. The quiet you on a new team is a you who's still observing. After a few weeks, once you have one or two people you're comfortable with, other traits start to come out. Don't decide in advance that “I'm someone with no presence on a new team.”
- Sort the settings that drain you from the ones that fill you up. If days when you handle all the reactions in the group chat strangely tire you out, while days when you lounge around with your long-term partner actually give you energy, the first is a setting where you use your social self a lot and the second is where you rest as your private self. In weeks crowded with draining settings, deliberately fit in at least one that fills you up.
If the you that comes out at work feels especially unfamiliar, we look at the strengths of that setting separately in Why is the me at work different from my usual self?
How not to read this
- Being different in different settings doesn't mean you have no backbone. Changing the volume of a trait and changing your standards are different things. The volume can vary from setting to setting, while the things you've decided not to do stay the same everywhere.
- It doesn't mean you have to pick one “real me.” The youngest at your parents' place and the class president at the reunion are both you. Decide that only one is real and you'll end up ashamed of the rest.
- It doesn't mean the you that comes out in uncomfortable relationships is all of you, either. If you get especially sharp around one particular person, that's a pattern in that relationship, not proof of your true nature.
- It doesn't mean adapting means putting up with everything, either. Adaptation has a cost. If that cost stays high, sometimes the right move is to adjust the setting rather than change yourself.
Your many selves are one person's range
Moving between the youngest, the class president, and the new hire in three days wasn't you being unsteady; it was you living through that many different settings. The youngest, the class president, and the new hire all came from one person's temperament. Once you know which relationships bring out which you, you can choose among them instead of doubting the change.
The free personality test shows the you around people and the you alone separately. Use it as a starting point for gauging where between those two characters the you in each relationship stands. We've laid out how to read the distance between the two characters trait by trait in Social self and private self: why do I become a different me with different people?
This piece is meant to help you understand yourself; it's not a diagnosis that pins down your personality.
The “you” in this story, is it really you?
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