Will the Real You Please Stand Up?

Anybody else remember Kitty Carlisle?

Back in the days of black-and-white TV, back when I was just a kid, there was a game show called To Tell the Truth.  The premise of the show was simple; three contestants would appear, each claiming to be the same person, someone with some minor claim to fame.  The game started with the three walking on, and being asked the question,  "Contestant number 1 (or 2 or 3), what is your name, please?"  Each contestant would give the same name, and the celebrity panelists would ask them questions to try and determine exactly who of the was the real Barnabas Blatherskite, inventor of the underwater can-opener, or whoever they were all claiming to be.  After all the questions were asked and answered, the celebrities would vote, and the announcer would dramatically say "Will the real [person's name] please stand up?"  The real one would stand, the impostors would be exposed, and the panelists who happened to vote correctly would glory in their astuteness and powers of deduction.

I was reminded of To Tell the Truth because I have noticed that people act in different ways in different situations.  A great example of this was Chip, a guy I used to work with.  In person, Chip was kind of dour, sort of all-business, and seemed to have no sense of humor at all.  However, in the course of our work, we exchanged lots of e-mails, in which Chip would reveal another side of himself that no one would ever suspect.  He was witty, clever, and had a keen sense of humor.  Try as I might, though, I could never induce the e-mail version of Chip to reveal himself in person. It was almost as if he were two different people.

More recently, I have noticed a similar situation with Marsha, a woman I currently work with.  In person, she is nice enough, but rather withdrawn, and exhibits little or no sense of humor.  On the phone, however, she is a riot, expressing the same kind of cynical, Dilbert-is-my-life sense of humor that I have.   Often, I laugh out loud when I am speaking with her on the phone, and wonder who she really is once the conversation is over.  Will the real Marsha please stand up?

And you may have noticed a difference in some of your real-life friends when they interact with others on Facebook, where many people feel free to be someone really different from whom they appear to be outside of Cyberspace.   Brad Paisley explored this phenomenon in his song  "Online," about a geek who is "so much cooler online."

So, what's the deal?  Why don't people behave the same way in every situation?   Are they trying to fool those around them by pretending to be what they are not?  If they seem one way in person and another way in e-mail, on the phone, or on social media, which one of them is the real one?  Who are they, anyway?

In college I minored in psychology, and observing people and the things they do has always been fascinating to me.  We often have discussions at our house about personality tests, and the various results that they show.  There are many of the these tests, and you might be a Lion or an Otter on one test, Sanguine or Melancholic on another, or an INFP on another.    These tests and the results are interesting to think about, and to talk about, but I think they can make it easy to lock people into categories into which they don't completely fit, or at least don't fit all the time.

An example of this is the "I" on the Briggs-Myers personality test.  It stands for "introvert," as opposed to extrovert, which is the other possibility under this model.  A simple definition for these terms is that an introvert is energized by spending time alone, while an extrovert is energized by spending time with other people.  I have often observed that, while my brother Scott and I are alike in many ways, he is an extrovert and I am an introvert.  However, when I made this observation recently to some family members, some of them said they thought that Scott is also an introvert .  And when I described myself as an introvert to a lady I have worked with for more than 30 years, she was astonished, and said that she would have sworn that I am an extrovert.

Have you ever noticed that there are some people with whom you are more relaxed, with whom you feel accepted, with whom you can make jokes, while there are other people with whom you feel inhibited or intimidated?  Are there some situations in which you act one way, and other situations you act another way?  If so, which one of these behaviors represents the real you?   Which one makes you an impostor?  If you're an introvert, for example, aren't you supposed to be one all the time?

I think we do people a disservice when we try to define or judge them too much by the ways they sometimes act.  I have noticed this happens often in religious institutions when someone's weakness is revealed, when they fail to live up to their own standards, and the standards of the institution.   While I agree that it is shocking and disappointing to learn that a televangelist visits prostitutes, for example, does that fact discount every good thing he may have done in his life?  Does it mean that he doesn't love God, that he has no heart for people, that everything he ever did before he erred was just an act, that he was never anything more than a hypocrite?  I don't think so.

For me, it is useful to realize that people are many things, and some of them are not always evident to us.  When someone surprises you with a behavior you haven't observed in them before, they probably aren't faking like the geek in Brad Paisley's song, or being impostors like the contestants on To Tell the Truth, although people sometimes do seek to deceive us. But mostly, I think people are gloriously complicated, like Chip or Marsha, possessing personality characteristics that reveal themselves in surprising ways.  It is tempting for us to want to put everyone into a box, or to define them as types or by labels, or to expect them to always be the same.  People, who they really are, change with each moment and each experience.  Being in flux is part of being alive.

Copyright © 2013 by Steven W. Fouse