I get a lot of advice to just be myself, for various situations, meeting new friends, formal business meetings, presentations, interviews, and the list goes on.
Problem is, how do you know what you are? you can do a lot of navel gazing, and try and figure out what you are and be that, but in the real world this doesn’t work. There’s research that says people make up their minds about someone new in 3 seconds. The thing is they make up their mind based on their classification not yours.
So someone might decide you’re a developer. And then they judge you based on how “developer” you are, they’ll be dissapointed if you’re not as good a developer as _they_ were expecting.
Someone might decide you’re a bit of a flirt, everything you say will be loaded with innuendo even if you didn’t intend it to be.
Sometimes, even your initial impression isn’t enough. I’ve recently had the experience of being retconned. I had an hour long conversation with someone about business models and content structure. Then they asked for my title. After I told him I was a dev, he went quiet for about 10 seconds. I could see him recasting everything that has been said in the conversation into a technical light. I would love to meet him at a poker table one day.
Seems like the more people get told to be themselves, the more they try and be what people think they should be.
So do you be yourself, and then alienate others because they don’t understand who you are, or do you present façades to fit into their heads. The end goal has to be what makes the difference. If you’re going out to make friends, being a confusing enigma is not going to get you there.
I’m lucky in that I have someone that I can be myself with, warts and all, I don’t think I’ll ever get that level of acceptance from anyone else.
